Through the Looking Glass
by Gertrude2034
Summary: Medical mystery/romance: Alice McKenzie is an investigative reporter who finds herself in House’s care in the clinic. Can she find love, solve a puzzle and keep her job? House/OC romance, rated for language and sex scenes
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue **

"You know Alice, I get the impression you're not taking this _seriously_."

"No, really?" Alice flexed every inch of her not-inconsiderable sarcasm muscle into the two words.

"Well, I think it's time you started. Do you want to be here?"

"No, of course I don't want to be here." Alice rolled her eyes and slumped lower in the chair, her arms crossed.

"Well, I got the impression that your boss felt it was important for you to talk about your _anger_—"

"Old Mad-Eye hasn't got a clue," she interrupted. Yes, it was her boss's fault that she was sitting in the therapist's office, instead of outside doing her job. Outside in the bright sunny day which was no doubt filled with bad guys doing all kinds of evil and corrupt things that she should be investigating and reporting on.

"Mad-Eye?" the therapist questioned.

Alice pursed her lips, trying hard not to smile. Yeah, they called the chief-of-staff Mad-Eye Moody, not because of an uncanny ability to sniff out evil – hell, the man probably had a Dark Mark tattooed on his forearm for the fun of it – but because of his lazy eye, hunched back and tendency to swig from an always-in-reach hip flask filled with one of Jack Daniels' magic potions. So it was a bit mean, she shrugged mentally, but that's how journalists are. Shit, she knew that most of the newsroom called her Hermione behind her back, but then she was an easy target if only because of her curly red hair, temper, and a teeny-weeny tendency to know-it-all-ness.

"Don't you think it's a little childish to be calling your employer names?"

Childish? Hmm, Alice wondered. Shouldn't she be more concerned that she worked with a group of adults who seemed obsessed with a children's book about a boy wizard?

"He started it," she said petulantly, on purpose. She saw the petite, blonde therapist shift in her chair and knew she was getting to her. They'd been locked in the room together for almost forty minutes and the therapist had been growing steadily redder in the face as the session progressed. Alice was quietly aiming for her to have to call _her own_ therapist after this.

Alice was good at driving people mad.

Even therapists.

It was what made her a killer at her job.

"It seems to me Alice, that as a journalist you're used to being the one in control and the one asking the questions. I can see that it makes you uncomfortable to have that situation _reversed_."

Alice sighed. _Blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit… _maybe it wasn't worth the effort to resist. But then she pictured sleazy crime reporter Andrew Coupland and his wandering hands; he was the _real _reason she was here. Stupid git deserved that knee in the groin. He was nastier than ten Lucius Malfoys rolled together.

And on that note Alice made two decisions. One, it was well time to stop referencing everything in her life back to Harry Potter characters. Two, the session was over.

She stood up. She guessed she'd done it kind of suddenly, when she thought back on it. She looked down at the therapist and put her hands on her hips. Yeah, it was an intimidating pose, but it was second nature to her.

"Look, I don't know what you want from me, but I've had enough."

"I want an _emotion_, Alice, an _emotion!_" The therapist looked like she might cry in her desperation for Alice to _feel_.

"You want emotion?" Alice asked, her handy sarcasm shield in place.

The therapist stood too, face to face, although several inches shorter than Alice. "Yes Alice, you're so disconnected from your _feelings_. I want you to close your eyes and reach _inside_. Tell me something you've felt recently, something _strong_."

If nothing else, Alice was getting really sick of this woman's tendency to emphasise the last word of every sentence. That and her seemingly perfect blonde hair. But she thought about what would happen when she went back to work. She needed the therapist to tell Mad-Eye, umm, her boss, that Alice was perfectly fine and could go straight back to work. So it wouldn't hurt to cooperate just for the last few minutes.

She closed her eyes as the therapist had instructed, and once again Andrew Coupland swum into mind. His pasty, wet-lipped face; his pudgy fingers pawing at her ass. Then the sleaze's face was replaced by another man's: the face of her defeat, the face with that stupid, goofy grin that hid a manipulative, two-faced, scheming, life-destroying asshole named Stuart McKenzie. Suddenly Alice _felt_. Oh yeah, she had emotion coming out her Gryffindors. Interestingly it was rage. White. Hot. Rage.

She hadn't meant to punch the therapist. She guessed the therapist was only defending herself when she punched Alice back. Or maybe Alice just really had been _that_ annoying.

Whatever, her face hurt. A lot. And she wasn't going back to work that afternoon.

--

* * *

--

**Chapter 1**

House opened the door to exam room four as he scanned the chart in his hand. He looked briefly at the patient then back to the chart, before quickly looking up again as his brain processed the information that she was attractive. If you ignored the icepack she was holding over one eye, she was quite a looker. Her killer asset was the lush auburn curls that fell to her shoulder blades, and it definitely wasn't a dye job because she had the skin to go with it – almost translucently pale with lots of freckles. Bluey-green eyes, great breasts, long legs encased in a dark-coloured pants suit. Tall, big-boned, almost Amazonian. No petite little girl here.

But. Black eye.

God, he hated domestic violence. Almost as much as STDs.

"I'm Dr House," he said briefly, grabbing a pair of gloves. "What seems to be the matter?"

"My therapist hit me."

House did a double-take. "I'm sorry, but I thought you just said your _therapist_ hit you."

The patient nodded and gave him a slightly bashful look which he found highly amusing. "Well, I did hit her first. But I think she used a little more force than was absolutely necessary in self-defence."

"Geez, you must be one hell of a patient." He looked down at the chart. "Alice McKenzie. Alice? As in 'off with their heads?'"

"Strictly speaking, that was the Queen of Hearts, but go ahead, I've heard them all."

House pulled her hand and the icepack away from her face and began prodding at the bruise along her cheekbone.

"Can I ask why?"

"She kept asking me questions."

"What sort of questions?"

"Questions about me."

"Isn't that what therapists do?"

"I guess, but she was particularly annoying."

"Isn't that a technique? To get you to talk?"

"Do you want to see if I'll hit you too?" she asked him, her eyes staring frankly into his. House took a tiny step backwards, not intimidated, but definitely intrigued.

"_Curiouser and curiouser_," House quoted. "Why would you hit me?"

"Oh," she sagged a bit and waved a hand in the air randomly. "It was a whole asking questions thing. You know, you were asking me questions too. Based on my past performance, that's kinda risky."

House raised his eyebrows. "Well, I've never been one to play it safe . . . But I do need to ask a few more. Am I in immediate danger?"

"I'll try to contain myself. As long as your questions don't involve emotions you should be fine. Or whether cats eat bats, I hate that quote."

House decided to ignore the cats-eating-bats thing but made an immediate mental note to go home and re-read _Alice in Wonderland_. "Emotions? No. Can't say I need to cover any of that. Unless it was some kind of murderous rage impulse that suddenly overtook you? Cuz that'd be interesting."

Alice appeared to consider that possibility for a moment. "No, I don't think so. She was just really annoying me."

"Fair enough. So, does it hurt here?" He pressed along her cheekbone and around her eye socket, watching her face closely for reactions to pain.

"Ouch." Alice flinched, but House couldn't feel any bone damage, it was just bruising.

"No permanent damage," he declared. "Keep up the ice pack for a couple of hours and take some Tylenol for the pain."

"And my arm?" Alice asked.

"Your therapist hit your arm too?" House asked.

"No, the security guard scraped it against the door when he threw me out and it got cut," Alice said blandly, as if she was commenting on the weather.

"Therapists have security guards?"

"Who knew?" Alice tried to roll up her sleeve, but the suit jacket she was wearing was too tight to roll up high enough. Instead she had to shrug it off, revealing a silky, low-cut tank top and what had to be a push-up bra underneath. At first House tried really hard not to appear like he was looking, but then gave up the pretence and stared blatantly.

"Was your therapist attractive?" he asked, images forming in his mind.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," Alice answered, frowning at the question as she gingerly pulled the dressing she'd applied to her arm back for House to inspect. "She was blonde."

"Hmm. Was there any mud or jello involved in your therapy session?"

She rolled her eyes. "I have a feeling you're not asking that out of concern for contamination or infection."

House dragged his eyes away from her considerable cleavage and up to her face. "No. That's not why I'm asking. I was just wondering if you had plans for another session and if so, whether I could watch?" He gave her a hopeful smile. "I'd bring the jello."

"I actually wasn't planning on getting beaten up again anytime soon, but if you bring jello I'm sure I can find ways to be creative with it. Like, for example, shoving it up your ass if you don't look at my arm instead of my boobs." She gave him a sweet smile at odds with her venomous words.

House laughed. "Fair enough."

He looked at her arm and realised it was quite a nasty cut. "You're gonna need stitches in this," he said, prodding the wound gingerly. He walked over to the counter to gather the supplies he'd need. "At the risk of incurring bodily harm, can I ask you why you hit your therapist?" he asked over his shoulder as he prepared the local anaesthetic.

"Ever been to a therapist?" Alice asked.

"Yeah."

"Ever wanted to hit one?"

"Oh, yeah." House gave her a grin as he bent over her arm with the syringe. "Slight pinch." He noticed that she watched the needle go in, wincing only slightly.

"She told me not to be afraid of emotion," Alice answered after taking a sharp breath in. "And my emotions told me to smack her one. I was living out my fantasies."

"Sounds like the kind of stupid thing a therapist would say," House said, rolling the stool across the floor and sitting down next to the bed, getting himself organised to begin stitching her.

"That's what I thought." She bit her bottom lip, watching as he put the implements into place. She didn't seem nervous, just . . . thoughtful.

"Living out your fantasies sounds like a very healthy mental activity though," House said. "Care to share?" He looked up at her, wearing his most innocent expression. She narrowed her eyes and he knew he should be more careful. Because of a slight indiscretion with regards to insulting the pharmacist on duty in the ICU, Cuddy already had a week's worth of clinic duty over him and he didn't want to add to it with a patient complaint. But Alice was the most interesting clinic patient he'd had all day. All week, actually, if you didn't count the zucchini guy, and that had only been interesting because of the gross-out factor.

"Well, I do have this one fantasy…" she said, giving him a sexy wink and leaning closer to him. "In my fantasy I go to the hospital and I meet this gorgeous doctor. And we're in a room alone together and I slowly take off my clothes. And we're looking at each other, our eyes locked," she lowered her voice and sounded all breathy, "and we lean towards each other and I can smell that he wants me, can practically see it in his jeans, and then he reaches out, and then…" She fell back against the bed, away from him. "And then he stitches up my arm and gives me some painkillers and sends me home."

House shook his head, silently scolding himself because he'd actually been falling for her teasing. He covered it with a quip. "I think I'm getting the picture, Alice in Wonderland, as to just why your therapist might have hit you."

"She did deserve it. She told me I was being childish because I called my boss by a nickname. It wasn't even that rude."

House scoffed, and felt offended on her behalf. God knew he would have been in a mental institution if he wasn't able to release his baser nature through insulting Cuddy. "Well that's just sapping the fun out life. Everyone calls their boss something insulting. It's only natural."

"Precisely." As she had with the anaesthetic, House noted that she once again watched as he stitched her arm, the needle with its black thread moving neatly through her skin. Three quick stitches and it was done.

"There you go," he said, tying off the thread and cutting it. "All finished. You need to come back in a week or so to get them out."

It was his turn to tease. He leant in closer – and he'd already been pretty close. Now he could feel her body heat, smell her perfume and see the pattern of her freckles across her nose. He spoke, low and gravelly. "And now I'm going to make all _your_ fantasies come true…"

"Really?" She raised one eyebrow, but didn't move away, as if daring him.

"Oh yeah. That little fantasy of yours? Well, I'm gonna . . . " He rested one hand lightly over hers on the bed, a little startled by the tingle it sent through his arm. He used it as leverage to lean over her, stopping mere inches from her face and then he paused, closing his eyes for a moment and inhaling the fresh herbal scent of her hair. He dropped his voice even further as he gazed steadily into her eyes. "You know what I'm gonna do to you? I'm gonna . . . " Then he straightened up abruptly. "I'm going to get a nurse to come in with some pain killers and then you can go home."

He got up from the stool, as quickly and as elegantly as his leg allowed him to and headed for the door.

"Farewell Alice. My advice is to avoid therapists and rabbit holes for at least, oh, a week." He gave her a cheeky wink and a smile and closed the door behind him, pausing for a moment with his hand on the door. _Could he ask her out?_ He thought for a moment, but then shrugged. Women like that didn't go out with guys like him. _Nah. _But she had called him _gorgeous_, even if she had been bullshitting him. He smiled to himself. That was enough to keep him going for a while.

Alice watched the door close behind the cute, blue-eyed Dr House. Funny, although he'd been inappropriate as hell – and as Andrew Coupland and his bruised balls now knew, Alice was known to react badly to that, violently even – she felt better. A million times better after a fifteen minute exam in a free clinic than she had after a fifty-minute appointment with the therapist that had probably cost her employer upwards of a couple of hundred bucks.

She'd also swapped JK Rowling for Lewis Carroll. Despite being heartily sick of a lifetime of Wonderland jokes, that was definitely a trade up.


	2. Chapter 2

When Alice turned up for work the next day, Mad-Eye took one look at her bruised face and scowled. She assumed the therapist had phoned in a report, and Alice guessed she should count herself lucky that she wasn't pressing charges. Mad-Eye didn't say anything, instead taking her off the interview she'd gained with the potential new Republican mayoral candidate, giving it to another features writer. Alice instinctively understood that that was her punishment.

There was an email in her in-box from the HR department, an official warning for behaviour "_not within the values set of this organisation_", but she knew there was a three-strike rule at the _Princeton Observer_. This was only her second. She wasn't sure whether the warning was for kneeing creepy Coupland or hitting the therapist, not that it mattered. Actually, Alice thought, they should be thanking her for taking things into her own hands instead of draining organisational resources with an official complaint of sexual harassment against the guy. But Alice had never really been one for following due process.

Her day was dull. Mad-Eye confined her to the news desk, reviewing press releases, handing out assignments, taking calls from overenthusiastic PR people about the latest event that that the paper _absolutely couldn't miss!_ It was more of Mad-Eye's punishment; he knew she hated it.

Alice understood that she was impulsive. She had a quick temper. Cried easily, yelled easily, and seemingly nowadays, assaulted people easily. But she also knew when it was time to suck it up. This was one of those times. The phone rang again, another PR chick. She sighed.

_Suck it up_.

In a week her bruises would be gone and the whole incident of her walking out of the staffroom leaving Andrew Coupland lying on the floor cupping his balls with both hands would have faded into legend, a story brought out at Christmas parties and whenever he next tried it on some poor female co-worker. She smiled a bit at that. At least she'd be leaving some kind of legacy.

She knew most people wouldn't expect it – certainly not her colleagues who had many nicknames for her, Hermione being one of the kinder ones – but she'd always sort of thought that her legacy would be more of the human kind, a couple of red-haired genetic half-replicas. It seemed like that wasn't going to happen now. She was thirty-nine years old and knew the statistics. More chance of being in a plane crash than meeting a man. Her fertility down to less than half of what it was five years ago. She again silently thanked her take-no-prisoners lawyer who'd grabbed a significant slice of her ex's fortune. She deserved it. That asshole had not only cost her ten years of her past, he'd cost her her future as well. She hoped he and his little twenty-four year old Barbie doll would be very happy.

Well, actually, she hoped he and his little bimbo would die horribly in a fiery car crash, but you couldn't have everything.

Just a week. A week would be long enough for Mad Eye to feel she'd been punished enough and then she'd be back on the big stories.

He fingers ran lightly over the gauze dressing on her arm. And only a week until she had to go back to the hospital to get her stitches out. She wondered if she'd see Dr House again, then tried to ignore the little flutter of excitement that idea provoked. Ridiculous. She'd been totally overwrought, that's why she'd reacted so strongly to him.

With another heart-felt sigh, Alice reached over to answer the phone again, trying her best to listen patiently to the story being pitched to her.

_Suck it up. _

* * *

--

Alice had been disappointed. She didn't get the blue-eyed Dr House when she went to the clinic to have her stitches removed. She couldn't complain about the doctor she was assigned to, he was definitely handsome in a wholesome, all-American kind of way. Charming too. But they didn't talk about how she'd been injured, she didn't put on a telephone-sex voice to tell him a phony fantasy, and he didn't ask to watch her wrestle her therapist in jello. And he wasn't dressed in clothes that somehow looked as if he'd just picked them up off the bedroom floor after a bout of hot sex.

Altogether it was far less fun than last time.

She followed Dr Wilson out of the exam room and, as he told her to keep the cut covered for a couple more days, she saw him, taller than she remembered, standing at the nurse's station. He glanced up, met her eyes and Alice actually thought her heart did a little skip inside her. Yeah, like something out of a soppy romance novel, but that's exactly how it felt. She had to make a conscious effort not to put her hand to her chest. He continued to gaze at her, but she soon realised that he looked slightly confused. And who could blame him? He probably saw hundreds of patients a week, there was no reason he'd remember her, yet here she was, staring at him like a nut job.

_What an idiot._

It made her decision when she'd been dressing for the day all that more ridiculous.

Alice had a rule that whenever she caught a plane she wore good underwear. Not just clean knickers, like her grandmother might have advised, but her priciest, sexiest black lingerie. Her reasoning was sound: you never knew when you might get upgraded, and what happened if you found yourself next to George Clooney who then invited you to join the mile high club? You would _not_ want to be worried about revealing your comfortable-but-faded Fruit of the Loom with the little tear in the elastic at the front.

It was with much the same rationale that she'd put on her lacy gear that morning. Thinking about the medical equivalent of an upgrade. That dark, sexy voice he'd put on – she could hear it in her head. _Now that we've got those stitches sorted out, how about we make sure your breasts are okay? Hmm, breasts seem fine – have you had a pap smear recently? _

_Ew!_

It was wrong. Even just thinking about it was wrong.

But she didn't change her underwear. She could feel the black lace crawling up her butt crack right at that moment.

Feeling like an idiot and telling herself to get a grip, Alice turned back to the lovely Dr Wilson and thanked him for his time. She took the antiseptic cream he'd arranged for her just as a voice called over.

"Punched any therapists' lights out lately?"

"House." Alice caught Dr Wilson's warning tone. There was a hint of resignation in it, and she got the impression that Dr Wilson might spend quite a bit of his time saying "House" in just such a tone. She wondered what it would be like to have a conscience in the form of a walking, talking human being. Someone who told you when you'd gone too far; someone who was there to pull you back into line whenever you stepped over it.

_Fucking annoying_, she decided. The one inside her head was irritating enough.

She walked towards him, telling herself that it really didn't mean anything that he remembered her. "No therapists," she said. "Managed to contain myself to a parking inspector and a guy who works for the IRS. You?"

He pretended to think for a second. "A hospital administrator, an underling, and a patient. But he was _really_ asking for it." He shrugged.

Alice gave a half smile, trying to keep her face straight. She had been wondering if she might have magnified him in her mind after the procedure last week. But no, he was just as attractive as she'd first thought. Scruffy, slightly dishevelled, unshaven. Exactly the opposite of her no-good cheating ex-husband who was neat to the point of obsessive compulsive. The only good thing she'd ever got from him was a surname – so much of an improvement on Alice _Spitennzi_ she'd kept it even as she'd stripped him of half his assets.

Dr House's face turned serious. "How's your arm?" He nodded towards her.

"Practically good as new. I think there'll be a little scar, but then it's probably not a bad idea to have a reminder of it."

"A reminder of your failed potential career as a female mud wrestler?" He lifted up one eyebrow.

Alice felt a little zing in her stomach. He was _so_ flirting with her. She half-wished that it wasn't quite so thrilling. It was just a reflection of exactly how pathetic her life had become.

"It was jello, wasn't it?"

"Oh yeah, jello."

They stared at each other for a little while and Alice wondered what to say next. Her mind was blank and she felt her heart start to pick up speed, keeping pace with her racing but useless thoughts. This _never_ happened to her. She was a journalist! Always had a question. Her life was full of questions. Professional question? Personal question? Pedestrian question? What could she ask him?

"Look, if you two are going to stand around talking about jello, do you mind taking it up to the cafeteria? We're busy in here today." A grumpy nurse pulled the folder out of House's hand and slapped it down on the counter in front of Dr Wilson.

Alice could have kissed her.

"Well, I guess if you wanted jello, a hospital cafeteria might be just the place to get it." His voice had an inflection. _An invitation?_

At that point, Alice decided she'd follow him to the morgue if he asked, as long as she could look at him a bit longer and enjoy the fluttery, quivery feelings he seemed to stir up in her belly. But she didn't want to seem too eager either.

"Do you think they'll have raspberry?"

"Is that a show stopper? No raspberry, no wrestling?"

"Possibly. I couldn't do it if there was only orange. It would clash with my hair."

Grumpy nurse was obviously getting even more annoyed. "Just go to the cafeteria already!"

Dr House chuckled, seeming to find her annoyance amusing. "Shall we?"

Alice nodded and watched as he collected a cane from where it hung on the counter. She hadn't noticed that last week.

They turned and headed out of the glass doors to the clinic space – he gallantly held it open for her.

"But House!" The Dr Wilson protested from within.

"Suck it up Wilson."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thanks guys for your lovely comments. I love to hear from you all!

* * *

--

House ordered two bowls of raspberry jello, ignoring the surprised look from the cafeteria manager when he actually paid for them. He realised it was probably the first time he'd ever paid for anything there from his own pocket and was vaguely surprised that moths hadn't flown out when he'd opened his wallet.

He carried the tray over to the table Alice had selected and gave half a thought to "accidentally" tripping and pouring the jello over her – he was very eager to see what she wore under yet another black, tailored suit. But then he figured that if he wanted her to remove more than just her suit jacket, she might respond better to good table manners rather than him initiating a food fight.

She made a face when he put the tray down in front of her.

"You know, I was kind of thinking that 'jello' was a metaphor," she said.

"Really? I don't think so. You see, I specialise in metaphor, and today, jello is jello."

"Right. See, I was thinking that 'jello' was 'coffee'."

"You wanted to have coffee with me?" House didn't have to fake the surprise too much; he'd been as shocked as anyone when the redhead had followed him up to the cafeteria.

She seemed a little flustered by the question and House liked that, she'd struck him as someone who was very cool, calm and collected and he liked that he'd provoked a reaction.

"I normally like to date a man before I jello wrestle in front of him," she answered finally.

"Excellent. Well, I rarely bring dates here for coffee, mostly because the coffee here is awful. Sounds like we better do this properly. Are you free for dinner?" He made his voice deliberately carefree and looked away, over towards other diners in the room, being sure to appear as if her answer made no difference to him whatsoever. The fact that it if she said yes it would be his first date in two years was something he didn't want to dwell on.

She paused before answering, just long enough for House to start preparing an exit strategy.

"I guess you've—"

"I don't normally go for dinner with someone unless I know their first name," she said. She smiled at him and God, it was good. Jeez, if she could make him feel like this with just a smile, his head would probably explode if she gave him a blow job.

"I mean, it would be weird to say, 'can you pass the salt, Dr House?'"

"Greg." He put his hand out and she shook it.

"Alice," she said in response.

"I know."

"I know you know. It just seemed like the thing to say."

"_You should say what you mean._" House had re-read _Alice in Wonderland_ over the weekend, remembering why it had been one of his favourite books as a kid, and then again when he was at college. He was sure that second phase had nothing to do with hallucinogens. Probably.

"_I mean what I say, and that's the same thing, you know_," she retorted.

He raised his eyebrows, impressed. "Can you quote _Jabberwocky_ too?"

"Not until our second date."

He laughed. He liked her. "So you're really not going to eat this jello?"

"I'm afraid not. I gave up jello after a nasty bout of gastro a few years ago." She looked at her watch. "And besides, I need to get back to work. I'm not exactly in my boss's good graces right now."

"Why do you think I'm in the clinic?" House muttered.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Should I pick you up? Seven?"

"Sure." She gave him her address, a house in a ritzy part of town. Her clothes were good quality, but by no means couture, and there were no obvious designer labels on her bag or shoes, so House had a hard time picking her socio-economic bracket. He realised he didn't even know what she did for a living.

Alice rose from the table and gave him that smile again, the one that made him both happy and a little uncomfortable.

"See you tonight."

He didn't get up. He knew he should and his mother would disapprove, but with his leg there were some things he'd given up on. Automatically standing when a woman left a table was one of them.

"See you tonight," he echoed, watching her as she walked away from him. He considered himself a connoisseur of ass. She had a great ass.

He turned back to the table and picked up the bowl closest to him. He quite liked raspberry jello.

* * *

--

Back at work, on her last day of punishment on the news desk, Alice ignored a few calls. No one around her cared about an unanswered phone and the PR people would always call back.

As a features writer of a major daily newspaper, with several investigative reporting awards under her belt and a reputation that sent many politicians and CEOs screaming off to their bunkers to get a cuddle and a pep talk from their PR lackey, Alice McKenzie was lost in thought . . . thinking about what to wear on her date that night.

She had a simple, black jersey dress with a scooped neck, and if she wore skin-toned stockings and kept the jewellery plain, it wouldn't be too dressed up. She could wear her heels too – she liked wearing heels, but being so tall already, she was careful about her height. Thankfully he was tall, so she could probably wear stilettos and still be shorter than him, but her mid-height black patent sling-backs would do fine.

Her thoughts wandered more broadly, wondering where he lived, wondering which restaurant he'd take her to.

_Maybe the black was too much?_ But her other choice was a red floral, and that didn't feel right. No, the black. Besides, the dress had a zip down the back which also meant easy access later, when they got naked.

Alice choked on the sip of coffee she'd just taken. She sputtered and wiped her lips with the back of her hand, then looked around to make sure no one had been watching. She picked up a nearby phone and pretended to be taking a call, just in case.

She couldn't believe her brain was thinking like that! _When_ they got naked?

Alice was by no means virginal, but she had never slept with someone on the first date before. And she'd only had three dates since her ex-husband Stuart ran off with the stripper almost two years ago. (Crystal wasn't really a stripper, she worked in an office somewhere, but it made Alice feel better about her hatred of the woman to think of her as a sex worker.) One of the three dates had been with Andrew Coupland and just the idea of it made her sick now. He'd found the word "no" to be a vague construct, with a meaning anywhere between "yes please" and "oh God, take me now". Her other two dates had been with her tax accountant and they'd had a pleasant, if not terribly exciting, night in bed after their second evening out, but then he hadn't called. Except when her tax was due.

Her life had become _Jabberwocky_: it didn't make a lot of sense and was full of some s_lithy toves _indeed.

Maybe tonight was her chance to change it all. To stop this insanity that she'd spiralled into. Alice didn't want to hurt people. Unless it was an exposé on a corrupt politician and then all bets were off. But ordinary people, like that therapist and Andrew-the-creep, she didn't need to physically hurt them.

Perhaps she was just due for some action? If there was one part of her relationship with her ex that did work, it was when they were between the sheets. She had to admit, regular access to a good lover, no matter how much she hated him, was kind of important to her.

Dr Greg House and his sparkling blue eyes might be just the cure she was looking for.

* * *

--

House stopped in at Wilson's office on his way out in the late afternoon. Wilson had been paging him all day with what House assumed – mostly correctly – was an urgent need to lecture him about what he'd seen in the clinic and figured it could wait.

"Wilson, you rang," House announced in a deep, Lurch-like voice as he opened the door.

"House."

Great, from just that one word, House could tell Wilson was exasperated already.

"You've been avoiding me."

"I've been busy. My patient had the plague."

"Yeah, right."

House felt a little hurt. His patient really _had_ had the plague. His second-ever case.

Wilson stood, all the better to lecture him, House thought. So he sat down, letting Wilson get it out of his system.

"House, I know I stand on incredibly shaky moral ground as I say this, but you can't date a patient."

House did a fake, cartoon-style double-take. "Wait a minute. Is this James Wilson's office?" He picked up the name plate sitting on the desk and spun it around in his hands incredulously. "Because I could have sworn the door said James Wilson, MD, philanderer, ex-husband, and sleeper-with-dying-cancer-patients," House improvised.

Wilson blew out a breath and sat back in his office chair, deflated. "Well, I figured it was worth a shot. The only good thing about all of that was that I didn't get caught, House. Make sure you don't either."

"Wilson, relax. She's not my patient anymore. And besides, she came in with a black eye and a cut arm. It's not like I had to touch her anywhere inappropriate."

"Black eye?"

House shrugged. Of course, Alice's black eye was barely noticeable today; all Wilson would have seen were the stitches in her arm.

"She's not in an abusive relationship or anything is she? Because you don't want to get involved—"

"You're right Wilson," House interrupted. "I _don't want to get involved_. Now, did you page me all round the hospital today just to lecture me or was there something else bothering you?"

Wilson sighed again, but House could tell he'd won that round. "Remember that patient that I asked you to look at for me a few weeks ago? A middle-aged man, small cell carcinoma, questionable x-rays?"

House nodded, he remembered the case. The diagnosis had been borderline, but he'd agreed with his friend.

"He just came in to start his second round of chemo and they did another round of x-rays."

"And?" House's curiosity was piqued.

"See for yourself." Wilson gestured to the lightbox on the wall behind House.

House got up and looked at the chest x-rays closely. He frowned. "No cancer."

"That's right. No cancer."

"One round of chemo wouldn't have made this much difference."

"No. It wouldn't. It didn't. He never had cancer. I re-did the blood tests and all the markers were negative."

"So we screwed up," House said pragmatically. "It happens."

"He's suing me."

"Oh." No wonder Wilson was upset. This was probably his first malpractice suit. Well if not the very first, then the first in a long time. House, on the other hand, was fairly familiar with them. "Look don't worry. Cuddy will look after this. She'll get in some legal eagle and they'll deal with it. You'll have to sign some papers, but between them and the insurance company, you won't really have to think about it."

"Of course I'll think about it!" Wilson was cranky. Wilson was the only man House knew who did "cranky". "Cranky" was normally reserved for little old ladies and toddlers. "I nearly destroyed this man's life!"

"You'll get over it." House said. If Wilson wanted sympathy he really should have known by now to look elsewhere.

The exact same thought seemed to cross Wilson's mind and he sagged back into his chair, all his steam seemingly run out. "Never mind," he muttered.

House felt a little bad. "Look Wilson, you'll be fine, trust me. If you want, you can come over Saturday and watch the game and I'll tell you about the first time I was sued."

"Sure. Enjoy your date, House."

"Yeah, I will. I think." House had been thinking about Alice McKenzie all day. When he'd seen her in the clinic he'd felt an odd sense of déjà vu, as if a dream had suddenly clashed with reality. Which made sense, given that the night after he'd treated her, he _had_ dreamed about her. The sort of dream boys were supposed to grow out of. When he saw her, it took him a moment to connect her with the dream and then the dream with the reality of her treatment.

"Of course you will enjoy it. I'm just going to stay here until I catch up on all my paperwork."

House ignored Wilson's pathetic bid for sympathy, which was all it deserved. He checked his watch and then sprung up from the chair. "Gotta go, Wilson. I'm late." He smiled as a quote came back to him. "_I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date._"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Lots of people have favourited or put the story on alert, but haven't left me a review. Please let me know what you think!

Thanks muchly to all you lovely folks who leave me such nice comments every time. It's what encourages me to keep writing!

* * *

--

It hadn't started well.

He picked her up in a cab, more than twenty minutes late. In that time, Alice had veered between extremes: convinced herself that she'd been stood up, made excuses for him because he was a doctor, cursed him to eternal damnation and found herself almost in tears. It wasn't a good way to begin things.

In the cab, it didn't improve. His former charm seemed to have vanished. He was wearing a dark blue shirt, black pants, charcoal grey blazer and a red and blue striped tie. None of it worked. The easy, seemingly effortless stylishness she's admired at the hospital had disappeared. He answered her questions with single words, stared out the window away from her and generally seemed completely disinterested in being there.

Alice was on the verge of asking the cab to turn around, take her home again, when she noticed something. It wasn't necessarily an attractive something, but it explained a lot.

A couple of beads of sweat on his temple.

Alice's work meant she was good at reading other people's state of mind through body language and other non-verbal cues. If a politician was lying or uncomfortable with her questions, Alice knew. And with Greg House, it was suddenly as clear as the nose on his face.

_He was nervous! _

Now _that_ was something Alice didn't expect. But it gave her the courage to give things one last chance. If it didn't work, she could always call a cab from the restaurant and chalk it all up to yet another dating disaster. It'd be a story to share with her friends at their next dinner party, if nothing else: _The date that never was. Forget not ordering dessert – we didn't even get to the restaurant!_

His hand was resting on the seat between them and Alice reached over and covered it with hers. "I have a confession to make," she said, putting a low, slightly shy tone into her voice.

He turned to look at her and Alice was reminded of how good looking he was and how cute he was when he smiled. She wished with all her heart for this date to go well. If for no other reason than to give her poor, shattered self confidence a little boost. Alice used to be good at this, good at charming men. Now she just seemed to issue sarcastic quips and/or knee them in the groin. She needed to break the pattern.

"I'm not very good at dates," Alice continued. "And I haven't been on one in a long time. The last one was . . . well, the words 'unmitigated disaster' would not be overstating things. So, I guess, I hope you know what you're doing, because I haven't got a clue."

If Alice had read him right, this was a man who was used to being in control and who enjoyed having power over others. Alice hoped that by admitting her own nervousness, she'd give him permission to take the upper hand, to get back into the metaphorical driver's seat where he belonged. When he smiled she knew it had worked.

"Unmitigated disaster?" he asked. "Well, the only way is up."

His words became prophetic and the date improved dramatically from there. He was a bit full of himself, but then Alice had given him permission to do that, so she couldn't really complain. They laughed, shared likes and dislikes and very shallow descriptions of their lives – it seemed both of them were reluctant to reveal too much too soon, which was fine by her.

By the time dessert rolled around, Alice was having such a great time she didn't want the night to end. He hadn't exactly made any moves on her, but their legs had pressed together under the table, and she'd touched his arm a few times as they laughed and he hadn't pulled away. She wasn't sure if she wanted to sleep with him, but she definitely wanted to keep talking to him.

"So, want to come back to my place for coffee?" she asked, trying a flirty look, batting her eyelashes a little.

"Have you got something in your eye?"

Alice blushed and rubbed her eye uselessly. "Yeah. It's fine now."

"_Coffee_, coffee?" he asked. "Or coffee jello?"

Alice didn't miss the smirk. "I told you I don't do jello."

"You said you don't do jello unless you've been on a date first. Doesn't this qualify?"

Alice had no idea how to answer that. Instead she changed the subject. Sort of.

"I have a hot tub."

His look in response was surprised, aroused and just a little bit cautious.

"It's a good one," Alice continued. "A proper cedar tub, nice and deep. You can sit up straight and the water comes up to your shoulders and the jets are right on your spine. It's very relaxing. And if it's clear you can see the stars." Alice had no idea when she'd signed up to be a hot tub salesperson.

"Can we have coffee in the hot tub?"

"I guess so."

"Can we have jello in the hot tub?"

"I don't have—" Too late she caught the tease. "Oh. Well, we can have chocolate, or popsicles, or orange poppyseed cake, or cheese."

"Cheese in a hot tub?"

"I was just going through all the dessert things I've got at home that you might like."

"I think you've got plenty of things that I might like."

Alice bit her bottom lip. They'd been flirting pretty much since the main course arrived, but that was the first really suggestive thing he'd said. It made her feel better, because it meant her hot tub invitation was welcome, but it also twisted a knot of nerves in her belly. Did she want this? Her brain was telling her all the reasons it was a bad idea to invite a stranger into her home and get naked; other parts of her anatomy had already started a low throb in anticipation. She had a choice: take him home and see what he could do, or spend another night with her well-used rabbit. The rabbit was the safe bet: guaranteed orgasm and no awkward farewell afterwards, he just slipped back into his little blue satin bag. But a real live penis attached to a man who'd spent several years studying anatomy? There had to be decent odds on that.

"Shall we get the check?" she said.

* * *

--

House walked in to Alice's home and took a good look around. He hadn't noticed that much when he'd come to pick her up – he'd been too wrapped up in being annoyed with himself for being nervous. What kind of guy got to almost fifty years old and was still as nervous as a teenager on a date? He'd actually had a wardrobe crisis! He'd been so irritated with himself, his clothes and the world at large. But then Alice had talked him out of it. He had been superficially aware of it at the time, that she'd read him accurately and coaxed him out of his mood – that had almost irritated him too, but he'd decided to let it pass. Why shouldn't he enjoy a night out without analysing it to death?

Except that wasn't how his brain worked. But for a brief moment, he made it shut up.

Alice's house was enormous. Spread out over one level, with huge gardens all around, it had to have at least three too many bedrooms for its single occupant. He knew there was no way she could afford it on a journalist's salary, no matter how many awards she'd won. (Of course, he'd Googled her and probably now knew more about her career than she did.) That could only mean that the cheating ex-husband she'd briefly mentioned over dinner had haemorrhaged a significant amount of money in their divorce. Good for her.

In the living room, House spied an Xbox connected to a massive plasma screen. His fingers literally itched to play it, and he could suddenly imagine himself living here, reclining on the comfortable-looking, but no doubt hideously expensive sofa, playing video games while Alice brought him cold beers and massaged his feet with one hand while typing out Pulitzer-prize-winning articles with the other. Because he wasn't _completely_ selfish.

Yes, House's image of perfect domesticity was very specific indeed.

Alice returned from a long corridor she'd disappeared into a few minutes earlier, holding black men's swim trunks in her hand.

"These should fit you. I kept a few of Stuart's things in case they came in handy." She pursed her lips and shrugged. "And also to annoy him. He searched for this for days."

"The Xbox too?" House asked.

Alice looked kind of sheepish. "No, that's mine."

House chuckled, both at her story and with relief at the swim trunks she'd offered. He'd anticipated they would be going naked and had actually been feeling a little shy about that, how to undress in front of her, how to prepare her for the damage to his leg.

"You can change in here," Alice instructed. "I'm going into the bedroom. Once you're ready, just open that glass door there," she gestured to a panel of French doors across the room, "and it's right outside. You'll just have to pull the cover back."

House quickly undressed and pulled on the swimsuit. Thankfully it was fairly long and covered at least half the scar on his thigh.

Once in the hot tub, he leaned back and relaxed. The wooden spa had a ledge seat about half-way up, all the way around, so she'd been right, he could sit properly, like he was in a chair, and the water came up to his armpits. It was simple, but so much better than some of those fibreglass models that were moulded and shaped to make you lie in impossible positions.

It really was blissful, sitting comfortably in hot, swirling water, jets gently pounding against his back. He felt the stress of the day slip from him and decided that even after just a couple of minutes his leg was aching less. He wondered vaguely if those therapists he'd scoffed at, the ones who had suggested hydrotherapy to help manage his pain, might just have had a decent idea.

He opened his eyes briefly when he heard Alice making her way outside. She was carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee with sugar and cream. House smiled. He had absolutely no desire for a cup of coffee.

They really needed to work on their coffee metaphors.

He also noticed her fuchsia-coloured bikini. Her body was perhaps not quite swimsuit-model material, if only because of her almost blindingly pale skin, but for a woman approaching forty she looked good. Her breasts weren't as firm as they'd looked with a bra on, but they were at least a C-cup and gravity worked on everyone. Thankfully there was no hair where he didn't want to see hair, and she had great legs – long, lean and shapely. She'd tied her auburn curls up in a ponytail which gave her a young, carefree look.

All in all, House could not be unhappy that she was about to join him.

He closed his eyes again, giving her a little bit of privacy as she stepped into the tub. He felt the tide surge against him as she lowered herself into the water.

House couldn't help thinking that all of this was very pleasant until he was startled by her lips on his. He opened his eyes in shock, finding her right in front of him, her body not touching his, but with one hand on the side of the tub near his shoulder to steady herself. She was kissing him tentatively, her lips pressing against his and then pulling away, waiting for his response. He'd been taken by surprise, but he wasn't confused about what to do next. He dragged a hand out of the water and pressed it against the bare nape of her neck, pulling her to him so he could kiss her again, more deeply. The rest of her body floated over to him, and he felt her breasts brush against his chest, one of her legs landing lightly between his knees.

It was slightly unreal, her body made a little weightless by the water. Unless he pressed her to him, she floated, their skin just brushing. House felt like he was kissing a mermaid, and it was incredibly erotic.

Then she pulled back, pushed away from him and sat back on the other side of the tub.

"Just thought I'd get that out of the way," she said.

The night was cool and a fog of steam surrounded them. The tub wasn't that large, but there was now enough distance between them for the mist to slightly obscure her features.

"Good idea," House said, surprised to find himself slightly breathless.

"I brought coffee."

"I noticed."

"And cake. And chocolate."

"Really? You know, when I said I wanted coffee . . ."

"Yes?"

"I really meant jello."

She laughed. "I know what you meant."

House left it at that for a moment, enjoying the sensations assaulting him. He had been hopeful of getting laid tonight, but then he was a man and pretty much hoped for that every day. Now he was sitting in a swirling pool of hot water, a beautiful woman across from him, and she'd just indicated that he, indeed, had every chance of getting his rocks off fairly shortly. Life was good. If only she'd brought out a nice single malt instead of the coffee.

He was starting to feel drowsy from the wine at dinner and the warmth of the water. Perhaps it was good that there wasn't any whiskey on hand. But before he got too sleepy . . .

"So, your ex was wealthy?"

"Loaded. He's a stockbroker."

"Nice choice. As a divorcee, I mean."

"Yes, I thought so. And it was very convenient of him to go shag a twenty-four-year-old bimbo, making me the wronged party."

House heard the flippant tone that he could tell was used to cover a great deal of resentment and hurt. He made a mental note to tread carefully on that subject.

"Why don't you come over here?" he asked.

Their eyes locked and for a moment, House felt a connection, something warm unfurling inside his chest. Something warm was unfurling a little lower down as well, and House decided to concentrate on that instead, it being a much simpler beast to understand.

She swam over to him, the couple of feet separating them easily traversed in a single arm stroke. She placed herself sideways in his lap, resting her weight on his left thigh.

"This okay?" she asked.

In answer he let one arm wrap around her waist and pull her closer, until the side of her right breast was pressed against his chest.

"What happened to your leg?"

House had no desire to go into the whole story. "Blood clot damaged my thigh muscle." It was his stand-by answer and would satisfy a non-medical audience.

"Ouch."

"Yeah."

"Kiss me."

House shrugged. "Okay."

The kiss started tentatively, but both of them were obviously ready for more. Alice sighed against his mouth, parting her lips slightly and he took that as invitation. He let his tongue explore her mouth leisurely – just because they were ready for more didn't mean it had to happen immediately. With half a thought House also wondered at what point they'd have to get out – he didn't think it would be logistically possible to actually do it in the water, and besides, his wallet and the condom inside it was back in the living room, in his pants pocket.

Unless she'd brought one out from the house. Without pulling away from the kiss, he opened one eye and scanned the tray sitting next to the tub. He couldn't see anything that looked like one. Besides, that would have been pretty bold. Bringing out a tray with coffee and contraceptives.

_Coffee and contraceptives_, he liked that phrase. The words played in his head until he realised that Alice had pulled away and shifted position, throwing one leg over to straddle him. House forgot his word play and focused on the woman in front of him, inching forward on the seat to allow her to kneel astride him. The water gave her buoyancy and made her breasts look like apples he very much wanted to go bobbing for.

"You know, I think you underestimate your appeal as a jello wrestler," he said, bending a head to kiss the top of one breast.

"Will you shut up about jello wrestling?"

He looked up at her, her face pink and shiny with steam and perspiration. He kissed her neck, the soft skin under her ear, and realised that must be a good spot for her when he felt her fingers scrabble against his back, pulling herself close to him.

They both sighed as their bodies made contact under the water, the lycra of their bathing suits the only barriers between his hardness and her softness. She groaned as she rubbed up against him.

"Oh God, I forgot how good a real one feels," Alice said quietly.

"Why thank you."

"Shit. Did I say that out loud?" Alice's face, already pink from the heat of the water, deepened with a blush.

"Afraid so."

"Oh. Well. Sorry."

"No, feel free to continue to compare me favourably to artificial love toys, it's great for my ego."

"Like your ego needs a boost."

"Oh I might come across as all confident, macho and sexy, but really I'm a quivering mass of insecurities on the inside."

Alice stopped rubbing against him and leaned in to kiss his cheek and then his ear. "I know," she whispered.

House swallowed. He'd been joking. Hadn't he? But before he could ask any questions, he felt Alice's hand snaking down between their bodies.

"Mind if I . . . ?" she asked raising her eyebrows. Under the water, she took him in her hand and repositioned him, adjusting herself so he was pressed _just right_, making the friction that much more pleasurable for both of them.

"Not at all," House answered, his voice strangled. If they were going to get out of the tub, pretty soon might be a good idea . . .

But for now, House was lost in enjoying the moment. Because of the buoying effect of the water, he could move against Alice without hurting his leg too much. She was pulling him closer to her with every thrust, and her pebble-hard nipples jutted against his chest, a reminder of some exploring he still really wanted to do. But just as he thought about how much he'd like to drag his lips over the pale skin of her breast, he was suddenly swallowing water.

He was drowning.


	5. Chapter 5

House felt the water close over his head with a sense of panic. The jets made the noise underwater frightening and disorienting. He jammed his feet down to the floor of the tub to stop himself from falling any deeper, only to feel an answering stab of pain from his right leg. Then he was aware of an agonising scrape as the planks of the hot tub's seat ripped against the skin over his left hip bone and then his spine.

But all these pains were secondary. Secondary to the primal and urgent need to breathe. Panic was rising in him like bile, a remembered sensation of being restrained underwater that produced nothing so much as overwhelming terror.

Of course, he was only in a few feet of water, and there was no real chance that he would drown, but the panic of that feeling wasn't easily ignored. When he finally surfaced, Alice's hands under his armpits, helping to pull him up, he wasn't ready for her reaction.

She laughed.

"Oh God, are you okay?" she said between giggles. "I'm so sorry. I've never almost-drowned someone—"

"No, I am not fucking okay." House hated that he sounded like a petulant child, but he didn't know how else to cope with the conflict between her light-heartedness and his embarrassment, fear and pain. Obviously that one last thrust had pushed him a little too far forward on the seat. He felt like an idiot.

She immediately sobered. "Oh. Right. Well, let's get you—" She reached over to begin helping him out of the tub.

House didn't know which he despised more, her laughter or her pity. He shook her hand away. "Don't. I'm all right."

He rose out of the water, taking the steps gingerly, leaning heavily on the edge of the tub as he pulled his now-aching right leg out. And to think, it had actually been feeling better.

Behind him, he heard Alice suck in a breath as he wrapped a towel around himself.

"Oh, you're really hurt."

House felt around to his back, to his hip and lower spine where he'd felt the seat scrape against him. The skin was hot – all of his skin was hot – but this was pain heat. Alice scrambled out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself, bending to examine the scrapes.

"Don't! Leave it!" House said angrily. It was the kind of voice that had his underlings cowering, generally leaving the office before – House suspected – they burst into tears.

"Oh stop being such a baby." Alice smacked his hand away. House was so shocked that he hadn't caused the same reaction in her, he did what she said. "Come inside."

Alice grabbed his hand and they walked inside. She let him use her for balance – he'd left his cane leaning against the sofa in the living room – without making it too obvious. He was grateful for that.

She led him into the living room and gave him a gentle push to sit him down on the sofa. House was still very wet, and he had second thoughts about sitting, but then if she didn't care about her furniture, then why should he? Besides, her ex would probably buy her a new one.

"Wait here."

Alice disappeared and in her absence, House pulled off the soaking swimsuit and pulled on his boxer shorts and shirt, buttoning a couple of the buttons for modesty's sake. He was wishing he'd worn his usual "uniform" instead of trying too hard with a shirt and tie – at least he'd have had a t-shirt to pull on now. He took a few deep breaths and felt his equilibrium returning, now starting to feel embarrassed about his outburst. As the feelings of panic further receded, he was less certain of why he'd been so afraid. It seemed ridiculous now, to have been worried about drowning in a hot tub.

He tried sitting gingerly on the sofa, searching for a position that didn't rub his back or hip against the fabric and also didn't put pressure on his right leg. He soon gave up, realising the only option was to lie flat on his belly and he didn't really want to be presenting his ass to Alice when she came back into the room. Instead he stood up again and rummaged in his jacket pocket for his Vicodin, swallowing two. He felt a tug of regret that earlier he'd thought he'd be in here rummaging for a condom instead of his pain pills, but, looking down at his boxers, the contents of which now had absolutely no spark of life at all, it seemed like that was off the menu.

Alice returned in a couple of minutes with a clean dish towel, a bag of frozen peas, and a bottle of Glenmorangie.

House had to appreciate her approach to first aid.

She wrapped the towel around the peas and peered matter-of-factly at his back. "There's no bleeding, but it's a nasty graze, right on the bone. You're gonna have some impressive bruises tomorrow."

He sucked in a breath as she pressed the cold pack to his back.

"Why don't you lie down? You need to give this a minute before you can go anywhere anyway."

House nodded, somehow okay with being bossed around in the no-nonsense way she had. Besides, she was right. He needed a few minutes for the Vicodin to kick in before he could manage to go anywhere. So he planted himself, face first on the sofa, feeling like a dickhead.

Alice repositioned the peas on his back and then moved around the room, doing things that House couldn't see from his restricted position. But he could hear, and his well-trained ears definitely knew the sound a fifteen-year-old scotch makes when it splashes into a glass. Eventually she came back into his field of vision with two glasses, offering one to him, before suddenly pulling it back.

"Hang on." She disappeared again and House blew out a breath in frustration. It was like holding out candy to a child and then snatching it away.

Basically really, really unfair.

She returned with a triumphant smile on her face. The glass in her hand – it looked like a Riedel, so it had probably cost forty bucks – was now decorated with a red-and-white striped straw. She sat down cross legged on the floor next to him and held the glass up, twisting it until the straw reached his mouth. Meaning he didn't have to raise his head and thereby curve his sore back to drink it. _Clever girl. _

House had never drunk whisky through a straw and he thought there might well be a very good reason for that, but that didn't stop him from taking a long sip. The straw delivery system seemed to increase the heat of the liquid, but House swallowed two large mouthfuls before releasing the straw with a sigh and a slight burp. Very attractive.

He met Alice's eyes and could see the laughter bubbling behind them. She put a hand to her mouth and coughed, obviously trying to hold it in.

"I suppose . . . it is kinda funny," House admitted.

Alice erupted into giggles. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I know you hurt yourself, but it's _so funny_." She gasped.

Her laughter was infectious and House couldn't help joining in. He could only imagine what it might have looked like from her perspective, he'd leaned forward to take her breast in his mouth and then had suddenly disappeared under the water. Maybe she thought he'd done it on purpose, taking _going down_ to a whole new level. He chuckled again at that.

Alice leaned back against the sofa next to him, and the towel she was wearing wrapped around her bikini slipped a bit. He could see its position was precarious, it wouldn't take much before it would be in a puddle around her waist and those breasts in their pink bikini top would be revealed to him. He was pleased that the thought made him stir, that he seemed once more capable of that reaction, but his pleasure was soon squashed by the fact that there was very little he could do about it. He really was too sore to lie on his back, and his grazed spine hurt too much to make being on top of her pleasurable. He couldn't lie on his right side because of his thigh, and couldn't lie on his left because of the injury to his hip. She'd pretty much paralysed him in the sexual stakes. The part of his anatomy that had begun to poke a hole in the sofa cushions quickly deflated again.

"Look, I've got a heap of bedrooms here, why don't you stay the night and then head home in the morning? It might be a little easier to move then," Alice suggested.

He looked at her, trying to read her expression. He was simultaneously relieved and disappointed that she knew there would be no point sharing a bed, but he wondered if she was motivated by pity, guilt or revulsion. It suddenly occurred to him that he'd been lying there in his boxers, his thigh clearly visible.

Her eyes sparkled and to his surprise he didn't see any of those things there.

"In fact, maybe in the morning you might be feeling all better." She gave him what he thought was supposed to be a seductive wink, but it just made her look like she had an unfortunate twitch.

He laughed, again.

It hadn't quite been the perfect evening, but parts of it had been very enjoyable indeed.

"Yeah, okay."

* * *

--

After showing House to the bedroom down the hall from hers, Alice went to bed. She pulled out an emerald-green satin baby-doll nightie to wear, following her usual "be prepared" formula. Just in case she had to get up to help him in the night.

She couldn't help the giggles that were still bubbling up inside her every time she pictured what had happened. But she tried to squash them, telling herself that it wouldn't be good if he overheard her giggling to herself in her room.

Alice had been straddling him, rubbing against him. He'd been so hard against her clit in just the right way that, even through their swimsuits, she thought she might be able to come. Then he'd suddenly disappeared. She imagined it was something that might have been prize-winning on America's Funniest Home Videos – assuming they had an adults-only version – but at the time, she just felt confused. One minute she'd been feeling dazed and on the brink of ecstasy, the next minute, he was gone. Her legs were braced against the seat and side of the tub, so she hadn't moved, he'd just suddenly disappeared between her legs. Like the _vagina dentata_ myth come to life, he'd suddenly been swallowed whole.

When it had sunk in what had happened, it had been hilarious. Alice had fished him out from underneath her and laughed. Because what else could you do when sex went wrong?

His reaction, though? Not so hilarious.

She got that he would be embarrassed, so was she. After all, she'd been the one grabbing him, urging him closer to her, pulling him off the seat. But then wasn't laughter a great way to cover up embarrassment? _Why would he be angry? _

Alice lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. Her mind was busy and her body was yelling at her, having been taken so close to fulfilment and then having had it snatched away. She thought about the rabbit tucked away in the drawer of her nightstand and how unfair it was that she'd chosen the real-live-human-penis option and lost out big time. She had no idea how soundproof the walls were though, and she didn't think it was fair to make an injured date listen through the walls as her battery-operated-boyfriend finished his job.

That was probably a bit mean. Even for her.

Alice tossed and turned and finally fell into a restless sleep in the early hours of the morning.


	6. Chapter 6

Alice woke up the next morning, tired and irritable. At first she wasn't sure why she felt that way, but then the events of the previous evening came back to her. The date had been fun, but she doubted it could be called a success. She had a definite sense from the silence of the house around her that he'd already disappeared and now all she was left with were regrets.

_Why had she suggested the hot tub in the first place? _

She sighed and looked at the clock. It was after eight, but it wasn't as if she had a clock-in, clock-out job. She stretched, wondering whether to try to catch another hour's sleep, to see if that would improve her state of mind, and then caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. A note, on the undisturbed pillow next to her.

She recognised the notepaper from her desk, but the handwriting was new. She'd have guessed he was a doctor just by the barely intelligible scrawl.

_Alice in Wonderland: Happy un-birthday. Let's celebrate? Tell me where and when. G. _

His cell phone number was written underneath. Alice smiled. The "un-birthday" wasn't exactly original, but the fact that he wanted to see her again was enough to make her previous gloomy mood lift. She jumped out of bed and headed for the shower.

It wasn't until she got to work that she realised that he had to have walked into her bedroom while she was sleeping to leave that note on her pillow. God, she hoped that she hadn't been drooling. How embarrassing would it be if she was drooling? Or if her face was smooshed up against the pillow making her nose look all piggy-like? What if she'd accidentally farted in her sleep while he'd been in the room?

Alice's mind tormented her with the million-and-one embarrassing things her body could have done while she was unconscious until she decided to bury herself in work in an effort to banish all the hideous scenarios from her mind.

She was working on a lead, investigating potential corporate bullying in the local dairy industry. She spent a couple of hours online, learning about dairy farming and researching more about the history of a new, particularly aggressive player in the market that seemed to be acquiring its competitors at an impressive pace. It was boring, but research like this had won her accolades and brought down wrong-doers.

Every now and then Alice liked to picture herself as the journalistic equivalent of a superhero, faster than a loco-politician, able to leap tall stories in a single bound, searching for truth, justice and . . . well, a bad guy to expose.

After picturing herself in a red and blue lycra catsuit, with a little cape and CFM boots for good measure, Alice suddenly had enough confidence to respond to Greg's note. She grabbed her phone and typed in a text message.

_Un-birthday party tonight. Same bat-place, same bat-time. I'm cooking. Absolutely no hot water involved. A x_

Hmm, yep, that would do. Alice hit send and then, just as the phone flashed to let her know her message had travelled into the ether, she realised she'd signed it with a kiss. A stupid "x" after her "A". It was the way she signed all her text messages to friends, so typing it had been automatic. But it was so corny! And she'd sent it to a guy after one date!

Alice groaned and put her head into her hands, wishing, not for the first time, that text messages had a recall function.

Her boss, Michael "Mad-Eye" Moody chose that exact moment to wander over to her desk. "Bad day?" he asked. There was not a trace of sympathy in his voice, lest Alice actually think he was interested in her happiness or lack thereof.

Alice took a deep breath and pushed her silly, teenaged self back into the box she belonged in, and looked up at her boss, trying to appear professional.

"Uh, kind of. I think this dairy industry lead might be a bust. I've been researching all morning, but I've yet to find anything that's illegal. Morally reprehensible, yes, but illegal, no." The last story Alice had read had been about a family who had been evicted from their property, generations of farming ending with a single swipe of a red pen over a ledger. Unfortunately, it wasn't an unusual story. And it wasn't news.

Mad-Eye shrugged away her update and gestured over to an office on the far side of the floor. "See that guy in with Murdoch?"

Alice looked over and saw her colleague Sue Murdoch, another features writer, deep in conversation with a middle-aged guy. He looked kind of wrong, like his clothes didn't fit properly or something.

"Yeah, so what?"

"Think he's on the up and up?"

Alice moved her chair over a couple of feet to get a better look. This was a question Mad-Eye often asked her – Alice's powers of observation meant that sometimes her first impression of someone was more accurate than that of another reporter who'd spent hours interviewing them.

"Not sure . . . " Alice answered tentatively. There was something about the way the guy sat on the edge of the chair – could be nerves, or could be a sore back. It looked like his hands might be trembling – again could be nerves, or he could be sick. That'd explain the over-sized clothes. Then he touched his ear, and looked down as Sue leaned forward, apparently asking a very direct question.

"Hmm. I think there's something dodgy going on there. Not sure what."

"Okay, thanks." Moody got up to leave.

"That's it? You're not going to tell me what it's about?"

He gave her one of his patented evil grins as he walked away. "No."

Alice turned back to her desk, muttering under her breath about the inherent evilness of management and a fervent wish that someone would replace the fluid in his hip flask with polyjuice potion mixed with cockroach, just so she could watch the transmogrification.

"Doing underage magic spells again, Al?" It was newsroom shorthand for bitching about someone.

Alice looked up at junior reporter Cathy Miller, otherwise known as Jimmy because of her uncanny resemblance to Clark Kent's sidekick Jimmy Olsen: always smiling and eager to please. Alice noticed that she was carrying a stack of papers.

"Yeah, but just about Mad-Eye," Alice admitted. "Are those the annual reports from White and Co, Jimmy?"

"Yep. Going back five years. That's all I could get."

"Great, thanks."

Jimmy was great, really helpful, but she always wanted to hang around for a chat and today Alice wasn't interested.

"You know it's funny that a milk company is called—"

The buzz of Alice's mobile interrupted and Alice grabbed for it.

"Sorry Jimmy, gotta grab this. Thanks." She deliberately turned away, feeling a little mean ignoring a person for a text message, but if she didn't, Jimmy's breezy chatter could easily suck up most of the rest of her morning.

Alice couldn't help the flutter she felt when she read the message on her phone.

_Great, see you then. Look forward to taking up where we left off. Sort of._

Did he mean he _sort of_ looked forward to seeing her, or did he mean _sort of_ in terms of where they'd left off? She figured it was the later. If it was the former, surely he wouldn't be interested in seeing her again so soon. She cut herself off before it could turn into yet another mental drama that made her feel fourteen again. He definitely meant that he was looking forward to taking up where they'd left off – only just before he'd almost drowned. And oh, so did she. Alice just knew the rest of the afternoon was going to last _forever_.

* * *

--

House entered Wilson's office, making sure no one saw him go in. Which was ridiculous, it was a perfectly normal sight to see Dr House going into Dr Wilson's office at any time. But the purpose of this visit made him feel a need to be surreptitious.

"House? Are you okay?" Wilson seemed concerned enough to get up from behind his desk.

House knew he was walking funny. His leg hurt, and he was being cautious of the bruises on his spine. He just wanted to make sure, before he replied to Alice's invitation for that night, that he'd be . . . well, up to performance standards.

"Um." House wondered why he was hesitant. It wasn't like he was going to ask Wilson to check his prostate. "I need to you look at something."

"What?" Wilson suddenly looked nervous and House couldn't resist tormenting him.

He put on a serious, poker face. "I found a lump on my balls."

"Oh!" Wilson's expression was priceless, trying to cover his embarrassment with concern, and not really succeeding at either. "Well, I guess I could—"

"No, I didn't, you idiot." House laughed. Wilson didn't. "I hurt my back. I need you to check and make sure I didn't do any serious damage."

House had left Alice's place around four that morning, having been unable to sleep in the unfamiliar bed. He'd left a note on the pillow next to her, tip-toeing as best he could to avoid waking her. In her bedroom he watched her sleep for a while. Her hair had been spread over the pillow and she seemed to be wearing some kind of sexy little negligee. He had half an idea to get undressed again and crawl into bed next to her, just to cuddle up to her warm body, but he dismissed it as the crazed wanderings of his sleep-deprived and pain-filled brain. Back at his place, he'd tried to look at his injury in the mirror, but he couldn't turn enough to see it properly, so he'd decided to ask Wilson to check him out.

Wilson narrowed his eyes. "How did you hurt your back?"

House ignored the question and turned around, undoing his belt to loosen his jeans and then lifting up his shirt and t-shirt.

"Jeez!" Wilson's exclamation made House half-annoyed and half-proud. "What have you done to yourself?" He leaned in closer and House felt him gently pressing along the worst of the bruising.

"She likes it rough," House said through clenched teeth.

"What? Oh, your date." Wilson had obviously forgotten. Then it sunk in. "Your date did this to you?" He sounded outraged.

"Don't have a stroke, Wilson. No, she didn't to this to me. _I_ did this to me. It was a small hot tub misadventure."

"Right," Wilson said, but from his tone it was clear he had no idea what House meant and wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

"Just tell me if there's anything I need to be concerned about. I can't see it in the mirror myself."

Wilson dragged over a chair and sat down, bringing himself more in line with House's lower back. He pressed over the bruised bones and asked House to do a few movements to check his dexterity. At one point House was bent forward, his ass in Wilson's face as he sat in the chair, and House hoped like hell no one would burst in.

Then Wilson stood up and gestured to let House know he could rearrange his clothing.

"You seem fine to me. Just bruises. You did break the skin with a couple of those scrapes, so if you _were_ in a hot tub," Wilson made it clear that he highly doubted that was true, "you might want to swab it with some Betadine to make sure there's no infection."

"Right." He re-buckled his belt and turned around to face Wilson, who was sitting back at his desk, staring at House with a puzzled look. And now, House _did_ feel embarrassed. So he did what he would usually do. "Just glad to know I'm fighting fit for the repeat performance. Tonight we're doing it in harnesses suspended from the ceiling."

Wilson grimaced and House grinned. He headed for the door.

"Thanks, Wilson."


	7. Chapter 7

When he knocked on her door, exactly at seven, Alice slid the salad bowl into the fridge and headed for the door. She straightened her black ballerina-style skirt and made sure her stretchy black blouse was arranged correctly before opening the door. As he took a step inside, she wasn't quite sure how to greet him, uncertain what level of intimacy they were up to. He solved the problem for her, leaning in to give her a soft kiss on the lips before presenting her with a white box.

"Uh, thanks," she said, surprised. "What is this?" She turned and began leading him back into the kitchen. She needed to hide her blush as well – she was very pleased that he hadn't made an effort this time: no tie. The marl-grey t-shirt and pastel-blue shirt over jeans that hung from his hips was exactly that effortless stylishness that she'd first admired.

"Open it and you'll see."

Alice figured it could only be something from a bakery – it had that look and a slightly wobbly weight inside it. For a moment she wondered if he'd brought some elaborate thing made of jello as a joke. She put the box down on the kitchen bench and opened it, smiling at what she found inside.

It was small, somewhere between a cupcake and a full-sized cake, with chocolate icing and sprinkles pressed into the sides. "Happy Birthday" was written in beautiful script across the top and two letters, "un", had been added in front of "Birthday". The baker had obviously tried their best, but the "un" was so clearly an after-thought it was hilarious all by itself.

She laughed. "Thank you. It's the best un-birthday cake I've ever had."

"But not the first," he asked shrewdly.

She thought about lying, a little white lie to protect his feelings, but she had a sense that he'd not only know, he'd be more offended by the lie than by the truth. "No, not the first. But definitely the best. It makes me want to start with dessert."

"Good, me too."

He dipped a finger into the icing, coating it with sprinkles and what looked like cream from the middle of the cake, holding it up to her face. Alice knew exactly what she was expected to do. She couldn't deny the jolt of pure lust that shot through her, adding to the ache she'd been living with since the night before, but the whole idea of sucking cake off his finger was so clichéd. And, she had to admit, felt like she would be handing over a whole heap of power with just one gesture, letting him set their direction.

So she decided to change the game.

She pulled the neckline of her blouse low, revealing the top of one breast. She took his finger in one hand and painted herself with the cake and icing on his finger, tracing a trail from her collarbone to the lacy edge of her bra, looking into his eyes the whole time. At first he was surprised, then his eyes sparkled with amusement, and he looked down, following the line of icing over her chest.

"You're all sticky now," he said mischievously.

"So it seems."

He made no move to lean over and lick up the icing. She made no move to clean up his finger.

They stared at each other for a while, a battle of wills over something so minor, Alice began to wonder if they'd be stuck in the kitchen forever, unable to move until the other gave an inch. Finally he broke away from her, stepping out from the personal space he'd so thoroughly invaded.

"So, what's for dinner?"

He walked over to a counter on the far side of the kitchen where Alice had set out a bottle of merlot and two glasses. He picked up the bottle and began opening it, acting for all the world as if it was his place, his kitchen.

_Fuck_, Alice swore silently. Last night, and now this. If she was a guy she'd have had blue balls by now. She gave an annoyed sniff; she had a feeling she'd lost that round somehow, and now she was going to have spend the entire evening with icing over her chest. But she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of wiping it off.

"Cassoulet," she answered, trying to sound nonchalant. "With a green salad and some herb bread." She went to the oven to check on the meal.

"Cassoulet? The French thing that takes hours to cook?"

"Uh, yes. I . . . didn't exactly make that bit by hand, so it's only got to be reheated. But I got it from this great little gourmet food store. It's always good."

"Cool."

Alice expected some kind of lecture for buying take out and was surprised when it didn't eventuate. But then she realised that was just conditioning – Stuart would never have eaten a pre-made meal from a deli, no matter how good it might be.

House walked over to her and handed her a glass of wine, clinking his glass against hers once it was in her hand. His cake-covered finger had left a sticky fingerprint right in the middle.

"Take some more wine," he said.

Not many people would have picked it as a Carroll line, but Alice knew that bloody book backwards. That and it was a nonsensical thing to say in the first place given he'd only just opened the bottle, so it kind of stuck out. He'd replaced the Mad Hatter's' offer of more _tea_ with _wine_.

She smiled. "I haven't had any yet, so I can't have more." She thought that was about right.

"You mean you can't have _less_. It's very easy to have _more_ than nothing," he quoted back.

He'd stepped right into her personal space again. He seemed good at that. Alice swallowed hard. The subtext of his little quoting game was not lost on her.

"I want more," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes. She was simultaneously disappointed in herself and relieved as the words left her mouth. She had no idea why she was fighting the almost overwhelming desire to throw herself at him. If she had her way, they both would have their underwear off in the next three seconds. But Alice wasn't the surrendering type. Not to other people, and not even, it seemed, to her own desires.

She hadn't taken a sip, but he took the wine glass from her hand and set them both down on the counter. He proceeded very, very slowly to pull her into his arms, a hand on her lower back to ensure their bodies connected. It was as if he was deliberately drawing out this little victory over her. Then, without closing his eyes, he lowered his head and kissed her.

As a writer, Alice had a good vocabulary and she understood the dictionary definition of what it meant to _swoon_: to feel suddenly faint from overwhelming excitement, adoration or infatuation.

Yep. She'd have to inform Webster's. It was definitely all of those.

Alice wanted to hurry along his slow, languorous kissing, but for some reason her mouth wouldn't respond to her commands and so she had no choice but to allow it to happen at his pace. She wrapped her arms around his back, holding on to him for balance more than anything, and let him kiss her.

After a while he pulled back and Alice could feel his gaze on her face, but her eyelids felt too heavy to open. Then, like a peace gesture, a little compromise in their battle, she felt him lower his head and lick the icing trail from her chest. Alice drew a shaky breath as his tongue flicked over her skin, and wondered absently if it was possible to orgasm from kissing.

He'd just finished cleaning her and had begun to nuzzle at the lace top of her bra when the buzzer on the oven rang out, letting them know that their dinner was ready.

It was like a bell ringing in a boxing match, and Alice realised that she'd just lost round one. KO'ed completely. But, there were still more rounds to go, and Alice was nothing if not a fighter.

She took a deep breath, mentally sent strength to her wobbly knees, and unpeeled her fingers from their hold on his surprisingly hard and muscled back. It took every ounce of reserve that she had, but she pulled away from him, put a bright smile on her face and then took a long gulp of wine.

"So, dinner's ready," she said, proud there was only a slight waver in her voice.

He frowned at her. "Dinner?" He seemed confused and Alice had a little dart of pleasure at that; he'd been affected by their making out, just as she had.

"Yes. You know, food? Cassoulet? Salad? Nutrition? It's important apparently. Gives you energy. You might need some."

He chuckled and leaned against the counter, picking up his wine glass and taking a drink. He made no effort to hide the not inconsiderable bulge in his jeans and Alice felt the answering slickness in her crotch as she moved over to the oven and bent down to take the pot out.

She wasn't even vaguely hungry. But by God, if it killed her, she was going to sit there and eat this meal and show him that he wasn't quite as irresistible as he might like to think he was.

And then she was going to rip his clothes off and fuck him into the next century.

She pressed the salad bowl into his non-cane hand and, taking the cassoulet and their wine glasses, led him into the dining room where she'd already set the table.

"So, how was your day?" she asked, once the food had been served and they'd begun eating. It was a crappy question, but she wanted to force things back to a level just below molten-lava-hot and small talk seemed like a good idea.

"Fine." He talked, easily, about a patient he was treating, telling her a little more about his practice and the three fellows who worked under him. He was sarcastic and insulting about his colleagues and Alice thought that with that attitude he just might be able to make it in the world of journalism.

He asked her about her day in return, and she told him about the dairy industry research she'd done and about how she didn't think the story was going anywhere. He was actually interested, not just pretending, and asked some insightful questions about her research methods and approach to writing.

The meal passed pleasantly and relatively quickly, Alice thought, given that at every mouthful she stared at his lips, or at his hands as they used the cutlery, and had to keep adjusting herself in the chair, feeling so sensitive she felt she might come if he so much as breathed heavily in her direction.

She remembered what he'd felt like last night, pressed against her, and in her hand, and although that thought made her take in a quick breath, it also reminded her of what had happened.

She put down her knife and fork. "How's your back?"

He gave her a cheeky grin. "Pretty colours."

"But it works? You're okay, not injured?"

"Bruised, but otherwise okay. Your conscience can be clear."

"That's not what I was worried about."

"No?" He cocked one eyebrow in question.

"I just wanted to be sure you were . . . match-ready."

"Ah." He wiped his lips with a napkin and then pushed away from the table slightly. "So is it finally time to stop _playing_ and start _playing_?"

"Fuck yes." Alice hadn't meant to sound quite so desperate, but at that point didn't really care. She thought seriously about launching herself across the table, swiping crockery and cutlery out of her way as she went, but decided that might be a little melodramatic. Instead, she stood, held out her hand and, once he'd risen and clasped her hand in his, led him straight down the hall towards her bedroom.

"I'm taking no chances tonight," she said and she could hear the determination in her voice. "We're doing it in a bed and you're not leaving until you've shagged me senseless at least twice."

"I like a woman who knows what she wants."

"No you don't," Alice answered promptly. "But tonight you don't have a choice."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Smut alert.

* * *

--

House had had sex plenty of times in his life. Not recently, obviously, and perhaps that was why he felt the way he did. Because although he'd had plenty of sex, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this frantic. If he could have managed it, he would have scooped up Alice from her seat at the table and run into the bedroom . . . or better yet, just lain her down on the floor right there.

He'd found all their teasing and bizarre power play more arousing than anything he could remember. And he hadn't even come yet, but it was already a hundred times better than the weak and unsatisfying climaxes he'd achieved with the odd working girl here and there.

Alice surprised him. And so few people did that.

She surprised him again when they reached the bedroom, pulling him over to the bed and pushing against his chest. She was strong, but he was stronger, and he could have resisted – if he'd wanted to. Instead, he let himself fall backwards, landing in the middle of the bed. He felt a twinge from his sore back, but thanks to some anaesthetic cream he'd applied before coming over, it wasn't bothering him much at all.

He couldn't help but smirk as he watched Alice reach under her loose cotton skirt and pull off her underwear, throwing a scrap of black lace to the floor. Then she got on her knees on the bed and went straight for his belt buckle.

Looked like he wasn't the only one who was feeling a little heated.

"Uh, not into foreplay?" he asked. He was more than ready to go, but had mentally prepared himself for taking some time to bring her up to speed.

"I've had twenty-four hours of foreplay," Alice answered, her voice a growl. "That's more than enough."

He helped her push his jeans and briefs down, just far enough to release his straining erection. Alice gave him a lustful look and for a moment he thought she might be about to go down on him, but before he could respond to the surge that idea sent to his already painfully hard cock, she'd worked her way up his body, had raised her skirt and was poised above him. She had one hand holding her skirt and the other balancing herself on the bed, so House reached between them, fingering her lightly to find her entrance, smiling when he felt exactly how turned on she was.

"Does it always take a day to get you like this?" he asked, swiping some of her moisture over her clit, and enjoying her quick gasp in response.

"I, uh, oh—" Whatever she was going to say was lost in a groan as he grabbed his shaft and rubbed it against her, moistening the head in her juices before stroking along her slit. House felt a swell of pride that he'd reduced the smart-mouthed, never-short-of-a-quip journalist to unintelligible grunts.

Alice moved against him, sighing each time he brushed over her clit, but after only just a few moments she let go of her skirt so she could reach between them, her hand over his, positioning him. She'd obviously had enough of even that little bit of teasing.

She pulled his hand away and without further ado drove herself down, enveloping him in her heat. They both moaned aloud, House vaguely conscious of the fact that he should have put on a condom, but he decided he was past the point of caring.

She was breathing hard as she moved over him and if she hadn't looked so entirely beautiful and incredibly erotic, House might have felt just a tiny bit used. He decided to remind her that there was more to him than a cock – albeit a very nice one that seemed to be giving her a suitable amount of pleasure – and he began slowly running one hand up her leg, under her skirt.

"Take off your shirt," he said and was gratified that she complied immediately, undoing the buttons and shrugging it off her shoulders without skipping a beat. Her breasts in a black lace bra looked fantastic and House was momentarily grateful for the fact that her skirt had billowed out around them, completely obscuring the action going on, or he would be finishing just as quickly as he could tell she was about to. It was okay for her, she'd be ready to go again in minutes, he was thankful he'd stayed hard this long. Unfortunately his Vicodin dependency came with some penalties that he normally didn't worry about.

His fingers stroked her inner thigh and then reached her hot centre. He needed only a moment to find the right spot, trying a couple of different touches until she responded, giving her the pressure she needed to reach her peak. He felt when she reached that momentary stillness, the fraction of a second before the pleasure split her apart.

"Oh God, yes . . . I'm gonna . . . "

And then she did.

She was beautiful to watch, her face tormented in bliss, and even better to feel, as her body pulsed around him. House had to start thinking of some of the most revolting photos he'd seen in medical journals to keep himself from following her over the edge.

Eventually her movements slowed and she seemed to come back to herself, wiping her hair away from her face and looking down at him. She took in the fact that he was still more-or-less fully dressed, and then seemed instantly bashful.

"Um. Sorry?" she tried with a shrug.

"Itch scratched?" he asked dryly.

"For now."

"Mind helping scratch mine?" He thrust gently against her, reminding her of his hardness still inside, pleased when she gasped in response.

"Oh, God yes, yes."

"Good. Get undressed. I haven't even seen you naked yet," he made it sound like a grumble, but only to cover his eagerness.

Gently she lifted herself from him and they both sighed at the loss of contact. She moved over on the bed, stripping off her skirt and reaching behind her back to undo her bra. House scrambled out of his t-shirt and pulled off his shoes and socks so he could remove his jeans and briefs all the way.

Alice had repositioned herself properly on the bed, her head on the pillows. House nudged one of her knees and she obediently spread them, allowing him to lie over her. He wasted no time settling between her legs, placing one kiss on her breast. He regretted that he still hadn't given them the attention he wanted to, but he figured there was still time. For now, he had other priorities.

He buried himself inside her in one smooth but forceful thrust and she cried out. He didn't know her noises yet and wasn't sure if she was all right.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm great." She sounded breathless. "I'm all sensitive now and you're still so hard."

He began to move, already feeling like he was barely hanging on. Alice shifted underneath him, raising her legs to cross her ankles behind his buttocks. He wasn't entirely sure whether or not that was a good idea, because now he was sinking even further into her warmth and it had already been close.

He let out a guttural groan as he struggled to hold on, moving inside her heat, the pressure building and building.

"Just give me . . . " Alice whispered. "I just need a couple more . . . "

House did his best, but then it was too much, the warm rush taking him over, leaving only the vaguest part of his brain to register that she followed him, both of them tipping into the abyss, clinging to each other in the aftermath.

After a moment, House pulled out and fell heavily onto the bed next to Alice. She let out a long sigh.

"That was fantastic."

"Christ, I think I lasted longer when I was fifteen," House gasped.

They each took a minute to recover their breath.

Alice turned to face him. "It was perfect." She gave him a look of amazement. "That's never happened to me before, ever."

"What? Multiple orgasms?" House was already feeling pretty impressed by his own performance and he puffed up with pride a little further.

"Oh, no, I do _that_ all the time."

"Oh." His chest deflated slightly.

"No, I meant coming together, we orgasmed at the same time."

"Yeah, I guess." To be honest, apart from the fact that perhaps her spasms had enhanced his sensations a little, it didn't mean that much to him. But it reminded him of his forgetfulness. "Speaking of orgasms . . . we, uh, didn't pause for protection."

"Yeah, I know. I thought about it, but I couldn't wait. Sorry." Once again, she looked a little bashful and he thought it was cute. "But I figure you're an infectious diseases expert, so I doubt you'd do anything like that if you didn't think it was safe. And I know I'm healthy and I'm on the pill, so what the hey."

She rolled over to the edge of the bed and stood up, wavering a little. "Oh, my knees don't work!" she joked. "You've given me jello legs."

House let out a small chuckle and watched as she left the room. He heard her in the adjoining bathroom, the sound of running water as she cleaned up, before she headed back out to the dining room and returned quickly with their glasses of wine, freshly refilled. She crawled back into bed carefully and handed him a glass.

"You should have a sign, '_drink me_'," he said, clinking the glass against hers.

"No, it would be '_eat me_'," she giggled and gave him a suggestive look. "The drink makes you smaller, the cake makes you larger."

House's eyes grew round as he made a valiant effort to choose between the dozens of quips that had just sprung into his mind. Before he could speak, she put a finger against his lips.

"Don't say it, just do it. Later."

House gave her a smile that indicated that he would do just that. "Do you think there's something a bit twisted about giving erotic meanings to a children's book?" he asked.

"No. I've been tortured by that book all my life. You should try being an overweight child called Alice and see what kids can do with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It's only fair I give a bit back."

"Fair enough." House swallowed the rest of his glass of wine and sat it down on the nightstand next to him. "You've tired me out, wench."

Alice suppressed a yawn. "Yeah, me too." She put her wine glass down.

House wanted to sleep, for the rest of the night if his leg would let him, and he wanted to sleep next to her. But there was something he had to fix first.

"Do you mind if we swap sides?" When she'd returned with their wine she'd jumped into bed on his right.

She gave him a puzzled look. "Sure, but mind if I ask why?"

When there was someone else in the bed, House had to sleep on the right side. After those first few weeks back at home from hospital after the infarction he learned that he didn't sleep well if Stacy was on his right, like part of his mind somehow stayed conscious, alert for any movement from her that might hurt his leg. But for some reason he didn't want to admit that to Alice – it sounded too much like fear, and he'd shown enough of that around her.

"Years of habit. I don't sleep well if I'm on the left." It was mostly true.

"Sure." He got from her face that she thought there was more to it than that, but was grateful that she didn't ask.

Alice made a show of climbing over the top of him, stopping halfway for a long, delicious kiss, brushing the tips of her breasts against his chest.

"Tease," House said when she released his mouth.

"It's not a tease if I intend to follow through," she answered. "Except not quite yet, I need recovery time. Are you going to stay over? We can go for round two later."

She sounded nonchalant, but there was no doubt from the look on her face that she was hoping he'd say yes. "Sure. Your bed's nicer than mine." It was too – a more comfortable mattress, cleaner sheets, fluffier pillows – but the main advantage was a warm body lying with him.

Alice snuggled down into the pillows next to him. She didn't wind herself around him like a grapevine – something he was very grateful for, he hated that suffocating feeling – but just lay on her side facing him, her pretty eyes closed, one hand resting gently on his shoulder as if to reassure herself that there was someone else there.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **A little more smut for y'all. There is actual plot coming back next chapter.

And you lurkers out there? It's time to come out from the shadows! Reviews are what keep me writing...

--

Alice woke up to a loud booming noise coming from somewhere in the house. She would have been frightened by it if she hadn't immediately recognised it as coming from her Xbox: _Duke Nukem_ doing some nuking.

The bed next to her was empty and when she sat up to check the clock it was just after three am. She fell back into pillow and smiled. He was an insomniac. They had so much in common.

Alice was really glad he'd stayed. She felt far calmer now, now that her body was no longer screaming for fulfilment. Sleeping next to him, having a warm male presence in her bed after so long had been comforting. There was something so intimate, so trusting about sleeping with someone. In some ways it was more intimate than sex, she thought, you were at your most vulnerable asleep and you let someone be there for that.

She rose and put on a silky robe, heading out to the living room.

"Hey," she said quietly, not wanting to startle him. He looked cute, nowhere near his real age, sitting in boxer shorts and t-shirt, his hair sticking up in all directions, leaning forward in concentration.

He looked briefly away from the screen to give her a smile. "Hey. Sorry, it's probably too loud. I couldn't work out how to turn it down."

"It's wired into my Bose. You can have it blaring in every room of the house, if you want."

She sat down on the sofa next to him and checked the screen. He was doing pretty well and from the stage of the game, he must have been playing for a while.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked, rubbing his back. Because it just seemed like the thing to do.

"Nah." He didn't look away from his game. "My leg, sometimes . . . _go, go, go, no the OTHER way_," he worked frantically at the controls, ". . . sometimes makes it hard to sleep."

Alice turned to lean into him, being careful not to disturb his game playing. She let one hand trail up the inside of his thigh.

"Hey, I'm about to tip the stripper," he complained. "Then I'm going on to the hidden level."

Alice ignored him. She decided to just keep teasing him until real life seemed more appealing than the one on screen. Her hand reached the leg of his boxers and she wriggled her fingertips inside to tickle his balls. Her mouth nibbled on his earlobe.

"Is the game distracting you from your leg?"

"Yes," he said, and she saw him bite his lip as her hand moved further into his boxers.

"And am I distracting you from the game?"

"Yes."

"Good." Alice fell to her knees and pulled the elastic of his boxer shorts down so she could distract him properly. It didn't take long before he tossed the game controller on to the sofa next to him and leaned back. Alice smiled as she heard the sad noises of Duke Nukem's defeat.

"You're a good distraction." He wound his fingers gently through her hair.

She paused her ministrations to look up and speak. "Better than Duke?"

"Hmm, I don't know yet." He pretended to be giving it great consideration.

"Hey, don't forget what I have in my mouth here." She grazed her teeth – gently – across his most delicate skin.

"Better than Duke," he agreed quickly.

Alice continued to work him, alternating between licking him like a popsicle and sucking him into her mouth as deeply as she could. She monitored his reactions, loving learning someone new, finding out what made him draw in his breath, what made him groan her name. She could feel as his excitement intensified, his balls in her hand tightening almost imperceptibly, and knew he was getting close. He put a hand to her cheek to stop her.

"My mom told me it was rude to make a girl swallow on a first date," he said.

Alice pulled away and laughed. "You really do say the most inappropriate things."

"I say plenty of inappropriate things, but I _do_ inappropriate things _way_ better," he said, leering.

"Yeah? Show me." Alice challenged. He was big on talk, she was beginning to realise. So far he'd performed well. Very well. But now that he knew her body a little, she wanted to see exactly what he could do. Would the reality live up to the hype?

"Get up here." He'd lost the teasing tone and his serious, commanding voice sent a fresh flood of moisture to Alice's already tingling groin.

"Yes, sir," she answered, climbing up from the floor on to the sofa next to him. As she did, her silky robe parted and she made no effort to restore her modesty.

He twisted around on the sofa to face her, his eyes immediately going to her almost completely exposed breasts.

"They're stunning," he said, almost to himself. "Lie back," he said to her, all commanding again.

Alice did as he asked, pulling her robe open as she leaned back, resting her head against the arm of the couch. He leaned over, kissing her hipbone, his mouth marking a hot trail up her torso until he reached the underside of her breast. He extended his tongue to lick a slow path to her nipple, circling it before taking it into his mouth and clenching it between his teeth.

"Ah!" Alice couldn't help but cry out at the rough treatment, which he immediately soothed by licking her thoroughly and blowing gently over the tight peak. Alice shivered and felt her nipple pucker into a hard pebble. She couldn't prevent herself from putting her arms around his neck and guiding him to her other breast. He repeated the treatment, using a hand to continue to tease and stroke the other breast, creating so many sensations that Alice didn't know where to focus her concentration.

She closed her eyes and let him worship her, his tongue and lips and fingertips working over her. She sensed that he was just as aroused by it as she was, his unintelligible murmurings definitely sounded like noises of appreciation.

He began to move down her torso again, light butterfly kisses tracing her skin until her reached her mound.

"You taste like sex," he said. He encouraged her to part her legs further and when he kissed her, there, she took in a sharp breath.

"Oh! Don't," Alice said, not even sure what she was saying.

"Don't? Don't what?" he asked. "Don't do this?" His mouth opened and he pressed into her, his hot tongue breathing fire from her clit to her womb and throughout her body. He teased her expertly, his lips and tongue tormenting and playing, exploring her folds, threatening to drown her in pure pleasure. When he fastened his lips around her clit and began gently sucking, Alice groaned loudly and pushed her hips into him.

"Oh God," she said, all other words having deserted her. Her ex hadn't been into oral, either giving or receiving, and it had been a long time since someone had given her such a thorough seeing to. Alice gave brief thought to imprisoning this man, keeping him locked in her bedroom, under her command, making him do this to her whenever she ordered. And it sounded like a pretty good idea, especially when he pushed two fingers inside her and began slowly fucking her with them, his rhythm matching the flicks of his tongue.

"Don't come," he mumbled against her.

"What?" Alice was barely coherent.

He lifted his head and slipped his fingers from her. Alice moaned, distraught at the abrupt halt. "No," she complained. "Where'd you go?"

House sat up and reached over her head to grab two of the carefully coordinated sofa pillows, throwing them on the floor next to where they were lying. "Take off your robe and kneel on the floor again," he said.

Alice thought about objecting, about ordering him to go back to doing exactly what he had been doing. But so far, he'd proven himself a match for the hyperbole. Maybe, she thought, she should keep following the white rabbit's directions, just to find out to which particular wonderland he'd take her.

"Like this?" Alice shrugged off her robe and knelt down as he'd instructed, facing the sofa. She was looking out through the French doors and could see a little mist of steam coming out from under the cover of the hot tub. A random thought about her unpaid electricity bill flittered across her mind but before it could take hold she felt him kneel behind her, his body pressed against her back, his mouth leaning in to kiss her neck, his hands reaching around to cup her breasts.

His fingertips pinched her nipples savagely and he used them to pull her body forward, down into the sofa in front of her. Alice had no idea what he intended to do until he released one of her breasts and she felt his hand probing between her legs. His fingers were quickly replaced by his hard, straining cock and he slowly began working his way inside her.

Alice wanted to push back, to impale herself on him, but his fingers still held her nipple painfully tightly and she knew he wouldn't let go. She was forced to wait, to let him thrust inside her an inch at a time, until she thought she was going to go insane from the suspense.

"Please," she begged, although she wasn't quite sure what she was begging for; for him to release her throbbing nipple or hold it tighter still, for him to move harder and faster, or to continue to do exactly what he was doing.

When he was finally buried to the hilt he leaned forward and sucked her earlobe into his mouth. His hot breath in her ear and his hot cock inside her made Alice feel completely invaded, totally taken over, her body overrun by another's.

"You're so hot and tight," he whispered. He still hadn't moved, just remained still, buried deep, his body now weighing her down into the soft cushions of the sofa. He began to roll her nipple between his fingers, easing off the pressure slightly, while his other hand stroked her hip and ass.

Alice figured this was his revenge for her earlier impetuousness. This was his way of making her realise that although she'd used him for her pleasure before, this time _he_ was calling the shots. And she was surprised by how overwhelmingly erotic that idea was.

"Move, please, I need you to . . . " Alice moaned. She felt the involuntary spasm of her internal muscles clenching around him as a physical emphasis to her words.

He took in a sharp breath and leaned back, releasing his weight over her. He let her nipple go and it immediately throbbed with a bizarre sensation that wasn't quite pain and wasn't quite pleasure. Alice couldn't help the strangled, faint noise she made deep in her throat, a noise that sounded like nothing so much as a puppy's whimper.

"Like this?" he asked, pulling out of her until only the tip of him was still inside, then sliding back in to sheathe himself fully.

Alice groaned.

He moved slowly in and out for long moments, but Alice was gratified when he began to pick up the pace, the heat and friction becoming too much for him to resist, despite his best intentions.

Alice curved her back, pushing into him, sliding back to meet his thrusts. She cried out; her arch made him sink that much further inside her, and as he did, he rubbed against her g-spot, sending waves of pleasure throughout her pelvis.

He pressed both his hands into her back, one close to her neck, holding her down, the other in the small of her spine, forcing her to stay almost uncomfortably arched. His weight pressed through his hands, pushing her down into the sofa seat, and Alice figured he was probably using her for balance as much as holding her in place. He continued to thrust, rhythmic and forceful, spearing her body with accuracy, skill and a fervour that bordered on mania.

"Alice," he said, his voice a low growl. "Are you gonna come?"

Alice was holding her breath, the surge of sensations drowning her brain to the point that she needed to make a conscious effort to remember to breathe. She'd never come without direct stimulation on her clit. But this time she knew it was different.

"Yes," she whispered. And as if she'd given herself permission as soon as the word left her mouth, she felt her body begin to contract, the waves of pleasure making her jerk against his restraint; sounds that were almost sobs ripped from her throat.

He continued to thrust through her orgasm, his rhythm intensifying, his force increasing. Just as Alice was beginning to feel her waves subside she felt him freeze inside her, felt his hot fluid shoot into her, felt the final thrusts of his orgasm, the twitch of his cock as it surrendered to his pleasure.

He collapsed on top of her, both of them gasping, each completely spent.

In the background, jangly noises from the Xbox tried to call their attention to the stranded video game. Neither of them noticed.


	10. Chapter 10

Alice sat opposite Patricia in the sort of pretentious restaurant Alice hated and Patricia loved.

Alice didn't count Patricia as a particularly good friend, but occasionally quite enjoyed her company, and they caught up for lunch at least once every couple of weeks. As the fashion and lifestyle editor at the paper, Patricia was always dressed fashionably, although not always attractively, Alice felt. Today, in her Akira unstructured tunic and stripped leggings, she thought Patricia looked like a Japanese schoolgirl gone wrong. But Alice didn't mind the occasional freebies Patricia tossed her way, and she was great to shop with.

The world of journalism being one of the last great bastions of nepotism and in-breeding, Patricia was married to Rowan Gladwell, the lead political correspondent at the paper. And at the moment, more than fashion, more than cosmetics, more than Jimmy Choo shoes, all Patricia wanted was to get pregnant. And that was all she talked about.

"So Rowan's taking this new herbal supplement and my doctor says my ovaries are looking much better this time around and I should have at least two eggs released, so we might even get twins . . . "

Alice tuned in and out. She had been seeing Greg House for just over two weeks and it was incredibly easy to zone out and lose herself in thinking about that instead. It had been a very exhausting, erotic and amusing two weeks. They'd spent every night together except for one – he said he had to spend some time with a friend of his who was going through a rough time. Alice had shrugged and was grateful for a few hours to herself to catch up on a few things. She tried not to admit how wonderful it felt when he crawled into bed with her later that night, cold feet and whisky breath notwithstanding.

He seemed to have practically moved in – he liked her bed better than his, he kept saying. He obviously _really _liked her entertainment system and – surprisingly, after a careful and nonsexual soak together one evening – the hot tub too. Alice wasn't certain enough yet to make any sort of confident predictions about how he felt about her. But the signs were positive.

Patricia's pregnancy monologue meant Alice hadn't been able to tell her friend that after a lo-o-o-ong dry spell it appeared that she finally had a man in her life.

Alice came back to earth as the waiter brought over their salads and they began eating.

"So, I'm having a dinner party tomorrow night and stupid Ann and Jack have called to cancel. I had the perfect number – eighteen guests – and now it's all spoiled."

Alice hadn't been invited to one of Patricia and Rowan's dinner parties since she became single. At first she'd been hurt, but then she realised it boiled down to her friend's compulsive need for balance and she'd gotten over it.

"That sucks. Have you got any stand bys?"

"No. And Mad-Eye and his wife are coming and I just wanted it to be perfect."

Alice had no interest in discussing a dinner party she wasn't going to be invited to. "So, I've met this guy . . . "

Patricia's eyes grew round she dropped her fork with a dramatic clatter. "Oh my God! Who is he and what does he do?"

It was _such_ a Patricia question. Not, _Are you happy?_ _How does he make you feel?_ _Is he good to you?,_ but a roundabout way of finding out, _Is he famous and how much does he earn? Can I benefit from knowing him too?_

"His name is Greg House and he's a doctor at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital. He's—"

"Oh, you both must come to the dinner party! I've probably got enough Observer people coming, but I don't have a doctor. That would be ideal."

Alice shook her head. Patricia was so painfully transparent sometimes.

"He's not a fertility doctor. He heads up the diagnostics department."

"Oh Alice, don't be silly, as if I'm going to be asking him for a consult. You'll be my guests!"

Alice nodded, but internally thought _yeah, right_ and made a mental note to warn House. That was _if_ he'd agree to go.

"I'll ask him and let you know."

Patricia smiled. "It'll be great. I can't wait to meet him!"

* * *

--

"Huge place," House whispered to Alice as they waited for the door to be opened. "They're both journalists?" Alice could see he was trying to work out how their salaries could possibly equate to a home of this size.

"Yeah, they are, but Patricia is a poor little rich girl. Her father is an oil tycoon."

House raised an eyebrow as if he didn't quite believe her. "Really."

She gave him an appreciative glance. She was wearing a black wrap dress and heels, and she'd told him the men would be wearing suits. He either hadn't listened or didn't care, because he was wearing dark, indigo-blue jeans, a black t-shirt and black blazer. He looked every inch some kind of carefree, glamorous rock star, and Alice was so pleased he was her date.

It didn't take long before they were in a huge dining room and had been introduced to other guests standing around a long, beautifully set table. Taper candles, white flower arrangements and gleaming silver made it look like something from Vogue. And, yes, sure enough, there was the photographer from the _Observer_, taking some happy snaps that would probably find their way into tomorrow's society column.

House had been seated across from her, Patricia following some no-doubt complex seating arrangement. The table was too wide for them to talk to each other comfortably, so they were left talking to the people either side of them, which unfortunately for Alice meant Rowan on one side and her boss on the other – meaning she had to concentrate hard to remember to call him Michael and not Mad-Eye. She wondered if House was going to do or say something wildly inappropriate, as she'd discovered was his way. She was actually half looking forward to it. But she eavesdropped on his conversation for a while and it seemed that while Patricia, on his left, was trying valiantly to work the conversation around to her fertility treatment, House was ignoring her to talk passionately to another woman Alice didn't know about some medical soap opera. _Strange. _

Alice took a look around the table and realised that the only married women were the ones whose husbands worked at the _Observer_. None of the female journalists had husbands, just boyfriends or – in the case of Kim, the entertainment and Hollywood correspondent – lesbian partners. Interesting.

As the evening wore on, and after dessert had been served, the party split naturally into two groups. They were primarily male and female, with the exception of House and Alice. She stayed at the dining table with the men, talking heatedly about the upcoming presidential race and some of the more influential business players in the current Wall Street dramas.

House gave her a cheeky wink as he walked out of the room and Alice felt a stab of arousal, quickly followed by a stab of pity as she watched Patricia slip a hand through his arm. As Patricia led him out to the living room with the other women Alice heard a snippet of their conversation: Patricia asking how many babies he'd delivered.

Alice was loving the fierce debate around the table until Mad-Eye and Rowan's conversation about political donations became extremely aggressive. She wondered what had happened to her, because she used to love a verbal sparring match, but as their anger increased Alice started to feel more and more uncomfortable.

Had her run-in with the therapist actually taught her something? Had the violent and aggressive streak she'd been worried she was cultivating disappeared? If so, that wasn't entirely a bad thing. But she also didn't like to sit there and watch a colleague make a serious career limiting move. Rowan had obviously had just a few too many champagnes and forgotten he was arguing with not just a guest, but his boss.

Alice excused herself to go to the bathroom.

She was right in the middle of peeing when she noticed the handle on the bathroom door turn.

"There's someone in here!" she called out.

Before she could so much as preserve her modesty, the door opened, House snuck in and closed it behind him again, a mischievous expression all over his face.

"Greg!" Alice hissed. She was outraged and embarrassed by the intrusion but she didn't want to alert any of the other party guests to their joint occupation of the bathroom.

"Alice!" he hissed copycat-style, in return. He gave her an appreciative glance and a saucy wink. "Quick, finish up peeing, I need a turn."

His comment only reinforced the fact that she was sitting on the toilet, dress hiked up, panties around her knees.

"What are you doing? Can't I pee in private?"

He looked around, as if half-expecting to find a crowd hidden behind the towel rail. "So it would appear. But why would you want to be lonely?"

_Lonely?_ Alice happened to think that visiting the toilet could – _and should_ – be the loneliest occupation in the world.

She quickly finished peeing, trying to be quiet, as House opened all the bathroom cabinets and peered inside at the various toiletries, cosmetics and medications he found inside.

"Patricia's trying too hard to get pregnant," he announced, pulling out and examining some vial of herbal potion with Chinese characters all over it, just as Alice hoisted her panties and flushed.

"Shh!" Alice couldn't help her response, even though there was no one in the vicinity to overhear. Alice pushed him away so she could wash her hands, and closed the mirrored cabinet door to prevent his further examination. "I know, but it's none of your business."

"She should be cutting back on the Perrier Jouet," he declared.

"Give her a break. She's really stressed. They've been trying for almost a year. And keep your voice down. I don't want people to know we're in here together."

"Okay," House said in a loud stage whisper. "How big is this bathroom anyway?"

Alice had to agree. Her place was big enough, but Patricia and Rowan's mansion was excessive. The bathroom they were in was probably bigger than her bedroom.

"These towels are amazingly soft too," House said with awe, handing one over to Alice for her to dry her hands.

She shook her head and chuckled as she took the towel. "You are such a girl."

"Am not!"

"Shh!" she warned again. "You are so. You're out there with the gals, gossiping away. What are you talking about anyway?"

"Soap operas mostly," House admitted. "I got bored with all the politics. I'd far rather discuss whether Sonia's quads have one or two fathers or if Rick's going to marry Brianna, than who's going to end up winning an arbitrary popularity contest. They're both fiction."

Alice took in a breath, about to defend democracy, when she thought better of such a futile exercise and closed her mouth.

House grabbed her now-dry hands and pulled her over to where he was leaning against the counter. He dragged her into a kiss, his hands dropping to her ass, holding her against him. Alice could feel evidence of his growing arousal pressing into her stomach, even as his tongue entered her mouth, sliding against hers.

"Wait, what? Why are you doing this?" Alice pulled back, feeling faintly dazed. This was not what she'd expected from her trip to the bathroom.

"After dissecting all the recent plotlines on _Prescription Passion_, us womenfolk were talking about assembling Ikea furniture," House explained, while nibbling his way down her neck. His hands continued to massage and rub her ass cheeks and Alice could feel herself starting to breathe more heavily. "And thinking about all that _insert tab A into slot B_ was making me horny."

"You naturally started thinking about tab G and slot A?" Alice guessed.

"Exactly."

There was a quiet rap at the door. "Alice are you in there?"

Alice gave House a wide-eyed glare. He just grinned. "Yes Patricia. Uh, I'm just fixing my makeup. Maybe you'd like to use another bathroom?"

"Oh." The voice from the other side of the door was clearly unconvinced. "All right. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. My allergies just made my eyes water and I've got raccoon rings from my mascara," Alice improvised wildly. House gave her an encouraging grin.

"Well, okay. There's a new Chanel make-up remover in the third drawer if you need it."

"Thanks." Alice put a finger to House's lips until she heard the retreating click-clack of their hostess's heels down the hallway.

"Greg, these people are my colleagues," Alice whispered furiously. "I can't just disappear into a bathroom and, oh—" Alice's lecture was suddenly halted by the rapid progress of his hand up her leg.

"Oh?" House continued the progress of his hand. "What do you mean by 'oh'?"

"Oh," Alice said, stalling for time, wondering what she _did_ mean. His hands were quickly distracting her. One was still grabbing her ass; the other had just started to make its way inside her panties. "How quick do you think we could be?" she asked breathlessly.

"Pretty quick, I reckon." His hand pressed against her mound, cupping her with the heat of his palm.

Alice drew in a breath. She'd gone from zero to sixty in a few seconds flat. She thought "pretty quick" was a fairly accurate estimation of the situation.

She reached for his belt buckle and the sound of the metal clinking as she undid it sent a shiver down her spine.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'?" he asked and spun them around, leaning her against the no-doubt expensive marble counter and pressing into her again for another kiss.

Alice decided not to answer, not wanting to verbalise her acquiescence, trying hard to deny the fact that she was submitting to him so easily. Two and a half weeks with this man and Alice felt like a teenager, her libido running rampantly out of control.

His jeans slipped to the floor and his boxers followed, and with House's encouragement her panties quickly traced their trajectory. He continued to rub her, his clever fingers having quickly learned her body, bringing her close to her peak.

Alice wrapped her hand around his penis, stroking him, the heat and hardness under her fingers proving just as arousing as his ministrations to her.

Once her breathing began to hitch, House encouraged Alice to raise her dress and perch on the edge of the cool stone counter. She did as he instructed, sitting up on the edge, wrapping her legs around the back of his, tugging gently to pull him to her. He slipped one finger inside her, to make sure she was ready for him, then pulled out and placed his cock against her entrance.

"Ready?" he whispered in her ear.

"Yeah. Gentle," Alice instructed quietly.

"Gentle?" he frowned at her.

"I don't want to yell out. So don't go too hard."

"Alice, Alice, Alice," he tutted. "I never would have picked you for a prude."

Alice thought about correcting him, but he began to sink inside her, gently and slowly, just as she had requested.

But if she'd thought that might prevent her from crying out she was wrong; the gradual assault on her senses was mind blowing, and Alice wanted to scream in anticipation, eagerness and sheer pleasure.

"Oh, God," she groaned, trying to bury her face in his shoulder to muffle her voice.

"Can you lift your legs higher?" House asked, his voice strangled.

"Why?" Alice asked, before House nodded to his left and Alice realised there was a full-length mirror capturing their movements and reflecting it back. She lifted her legs and suddenly they could both see the place where their bodies joined, his cock emerging, hot and wet, before plunging back into her again.

They both groaned. Loudly.

"Shh," Alice hushed, but she was too entranced by what she was seeing to care too much.

Their eyes locked in the mirror for a moment and they moved together slowly. Then, instantly, they both froze at the unmistakable sound of high heels clacking down the hallway, receding from the door. Someone had come to the bathroom and then walked away. If the person had knocked or said anything, neither of them had noticed. Alice could only hope that they hadn't heard anything too incriminating.

"I locked the door," House said into Alice's ear.

"Good."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Are you out of your mind?"

It took every bit of strength Alice had built up in years of yoga and pilates to maintain her position, but with him pumping in and out of her, the strain in her abdominal muscles wasn't her highest priority.

"Touch yourself," House instructed.

"What?" Alice's brain wasn't working on all cylinders.

"I can't . . . " House's arms were braced on the counter either side of her hips, keeping him balanced and giving him leverage to thrust into her. And, she figured hazily, making up for the fact that his right leg didn't work so well. " . . . And I'm not going to last much longer."

"Don't hold on," Alice pleaded. "Come, come in me."

He didn't need further encouragement, and with a low, guttural groan she could feel him freeze and then shoot, pushing into her three, four more times as he let go.

"Oh, God," he sighed, leaning into her. "I think we built a bookcase."

Alice gave him a moment and then shrugged against him. "The bookcase doesn't have shelves yet."

"Oh yeah." He pulled her black knit top open, revealing one lace-covered breast and leant down to kiss the already perky tip. He picked up her right hand and placed it between them, pulling out of her and drawing back just a little to give her room. "You do it. Touch yourself while I watch."

Alice hooked her feet on a couple of drawer handles beneath her, keeping her knees spread. She stroked herself, marvelling at how wet and swollen she was, how her body had responded to his invasion. Soon her fingers were concentrated on her clit, rubbing increasingly tight circles – she'd already been so close, it wasn't going to take much.

He continued to nibble and suckle at her breast through the lace of her bra, his eyes unabashedly gazing at her in the mirror. She met his eyes and held them until it became too much, she threw her head back, closed her eyes, and surrendered to the orgasm that clenched her insides and throbbed through her body. The movements of her fingers, the pressure of his mouth and the tingle left behind by his hard cock moving inside her all seemed to connect, spiralling the pleasure within her.

She bit her lip to stop from crying out, feeling her body shudder against his. He stepped closer to her, pulling her into his embrace, and she allowed her strained muscles to relax, collapsing into his arms, unable to hold herself up a moment a longer.

"That was so hot," he whispered in her ear, stroking a lock of hair back from her now shiny face. "You look so beautiful when you come."

Alice basked in his compliments and his warm strength as he held her. Slowly sense returned and she remembered she was in her colleague's bathroom, during a dinner party with workmates – including her boss! – right outside. She took in a shaky breath.

"You'd better leave first," she said, straightening up. "I have to clean up. We don't want to walk out together."

He nodded and stepped back, pulling on his boxers and jeans, refastening his belt and tucking in his t-shirt. Alice grabbed a handful of tissues to wipe herself then retrieved her panties. She found a washcloth and, wetting it with cold water, pressed it to her face carefully to try to bring down the blush of her cheeks without messing up her makeup too much.

He gave her a knee-melting smile as he opened the door, stepped outside and closed it again.

Alice sighed and looked at herself in the mirror. She wondered if there was even half a chance that everyone wouldn't know exactly what she'd just been up to when she walked out of there.

Then the door opened again. It was House.

"I forgot. I actually came in here to pee," he said sheepishly.

Alice shook her head at him. "You're an idiot."

"Maybe. But a sexy one, you have to admit."

"Yeah, I probably do."

She walked to the door, to give him the privacy he'd not allowed her. He grabbed her hand as she passed.

"Can we go soon?" The whining tone would have done a toddler proud.

"You really are a fifteen-year-old boy inside a fifty-year-old man, aren't you?"

"Hey, I'm not fifty."

"Yet. Tick tock, old man."

"Get out." He shooed her out the door and Alice didn't bother commenting further.

She carefully made her way out to the party, hoping to find a conversation to blend into, to find a way make it look like she'd been there for some time. Luckily the party had broken up further and there were no longer just the two male and female camps in the dining and living rooms. There was a small group of smokers out in the yard, and a handful of women in the kitchen, talking, watching the hired help clean up.

Alice headed for the kitchen, figuring it was her best bet for blending in – or at least looking as if she'd come from a heated discussion in the living room instead of heated sex in the bathroom.

She worked her way over and managed to join in on a conversation about a celebrity chef's new restaurant that one of the women had just been to – and rated very poorly. The group began to splinter into separate conversations and one by one the women drifted off to other rooms in the house. As soon as Alice and Patricia were alone, Patricia put a hand on Alice's elbow and dragged her over to the refrigerator where she retrieved yet another bottle of expensive French champagne.

Alice couldn't help thinking that House was right, if Patricia really wanted to conceive, perhaps she should be taking it easier with the booze.

"You just had sex in my bathroom, didn't you?" Patricia asked in a whisper.

"Of course not!" Alice prided herself on being a very good liar. However she felt this wasn't her best performance.

Patricia giggled, obviously not taking Alice's denial seriously. "You naughty, naughty girl." She poured them each a glass of champagne and held it up for them to clink in cheers. Her face sobered as she gave Alice a serious look. "If you get pregnant before I do, I'll never forgive you."

Alice was just taking a sip as Patricia spoke and almost choked on her mouthful. She covered it with a sarcastic laugh. "Patricia, I'm not . . . we're not . . . " Alice searched for a more definitive response. "We've only been going out for a couple of weeks! It's way too soon to even think about anything like that."

Patricia narrowed her eyes and then held her glass in the air in triumph, spilling a little. "Ha! But you want to. Already! I can see it in your eyes. You've got that broody look. He must have matching sperm."

"What?" Alice asked despite herself. She was quite sure she didn't want to be having this discussion. She already knew way too many details about Patricia and Rowan's sex life thanks to Patricia's earnest conversations over lunch. She had no wish to put her own and House's reproductive systems under the same scrutiny.

"I've been reading about it – it's a new theory, there are some eggs and sperm that are just meant to be together."

Alice frowned. "Like gamete soul mates?"

"Exactly. So even if the doctor's say a person is infertile, it might just be because their eggs or sperm don't match with their partner. Apparently once you meet someone who 'matches' you, your body responds and there's a really strong drive to get pregnant." She lowered her voice and gave Alice a conspiratorial look. "And it makes you very, you know, unable to resist temptation."

Alice thought it all sounded pretty doubtful. "And this was in a medical journal?"

"Something like that," Patricia said airily. "So, anyway, if he's got matching sperm it doesn't matter how long you're together, you just immediately know you want to get pregnant. And it says that the natural forces governing the matching process can even overcome contraception."

"What, sperm can somehow jump through latex when they sense a matching egg?" Alice didn't mean to sound so cynical; she knew that Patricia's desperation to get pregnant probably meant she would do naked fertility moon dances in the mall if she thought it might help.

"I'm just telling you what I read. And – seriously – if you get pregnant before I do, I won't speak to you again."

Alice gave a Patricia's arm a squeeze. "Patricia, there's no way I'm having Greg House's baby. Not yet, anyway. You don't have to worry about that."

Patricia held up a hand, obviously not convinced. "Fine, I—"

"Just as well. My sperm is very picky." House's voice interrupted.

Alice spun around as if she'd been caught red-handed at a murder scene. She flushed and was immediately annoyed with herself. What did it matter if he'd overheard her say she _wasn't_ planning to get pregnant?

"Uh . . . We were just talking about . . . it doesn't matter. Would you like another drink?" Alice reached for the bottle.

Patricia sidled up to House. "So, Greg, you escaped earlier just as I was asking you about whether you do any diagnosis work in fertility issues. Because I—"

House ignored Patricia and answered Alice's question. "No more champagne for me, thanks. Honey, would you mind if we headed off? I have a headache."

Alice's mouth hung open. First at the fact that he called her "honey", it sounded weird and just plain wrong coming from him. Second at the tone in his voice: "good little husband" would have been Alice's best description. Perhaps hanging out with the wives for the evening had had an impact on him. Or perhaps he just really was that desperate to get away from Patricia.

He gave her a look and she saw right through him, the lie, the dare, the act he was putting on. She shook her head to clear it and put down her glass and the bottle of champagne.

"Oh, of course, _sweetheart_," Alice played right back. "Patricia, you don't mind if we head off a little early?"

"No, no. Go look after your man," she encouraged and Alice cringed. Greg House was not "her man" and she had a feeling he'd resist any attempt to be "looked after".

In the cab on the way home, Alice felt the need to clarify the conversation he'd overheard. She didn't want him to be insulted by what she said, or concerned that she was one of those women desperate for a sperm donor.

"Patricia knew what we were doing in the bathroom, I think she heard us," Alice said guiltily. She immediately realised that she should have known better than to expect embarrassment from him.

"Maybe it will give her ideas," House replied. "Or at least make her a little horny. Perhaps Rowan has a chance of getting lucky tonight even if she's not ovulating."

"Well, it made her tell me about this new study she'd read about. Apparently there are sperm and eggs that 'match' and when two people meet who have matching cells it's very hard for them to keep their hands off each other and very easy for them to get pregnant. And vice versa."

"Sounds like bullshit to me."

"You haven't read anything like that?"

"No. Getting pregnant has nothing to do with 'matching' anything. Just ask a sixteen year old who got herself knocked up behind the bike sheds at school."

"Yeah, but a sixteen year old can get pregnant easily."

"Exactly. And a forty-three year old can't. Patricia should spend less time and money on the wacky remedies and just relax and have more sex."

"Yeah, I don't think she likes that bit." Alice had been wondering about that for a while. "She thought I wanted to get pregnant, that's what you overheard."

"And do you?" He turned to look at her.

Alice swallowed. She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to send him running for the hills either. "Not with someone I've only known for a couple of weeks," she said.

He gave her a sly smile. "I have no objection to being used for practice. But I'd expect to be consulted well before you decided to turn professional."

Alice was relieved he was joking about it. It was too soon to get into any of that with him.

"Sounds good to me. Was the bathroom enough practice for tonight, or do you think there are still some finer points we need to go over?" Alice couldn't help rubbing her legs together as she spoke. The results of their bathroom rendezvous had made her panties and inner thighs wet and sticky, but there was a strange pleasure in the discomfort.

He reached over and squeezed her thigh. "Why do you think I wanted to leave?"


	11. Chapter 11

"Alice, sit down."

Alice had been summoned to Mad-Eye's office as soon as she'd got in the next morning and she couldn't help wondering if she was going to be called to account for her wayward behaviour the previous evening. But fellow features writer Sue Murdoch was sitting in the office too, looking pissed, and although Alice didn't think the meeting was going to be hugs and puppies, it probably wasn't about dinner.

"Sue's been doing a story and I want you to work with her on it."

Alice nodded, carefully avoiding eye contact with Sue. They both understood that although he'd said "work with her", Mad-Eye was effectively taking Sue off the story and giving it to Alice. Alice would be pissed off if he'd done it to her too, but there was little either of them could do about it.

"Sue, give your notes and research over to Alice. And set up a meeting for her with that cancer guy." Mad-Eye turned his attention to Alice. "That new fella of yours. The doctor. He works at Princeton Plainsboro, right?"

Beside her, Sue drew in a quick breath.

"Yes." Alice nodded hesitantly, not sure what House was going to have to do with all this.

"Good. You'll be able to work some contacts through him. I want to find out if we can get to the bottom of this. It smells like a winner to me."

"Okay." Alice was still confused, but figured things would be become clearer once she spoke to Sue.

And indeed they did. Sue had spent the past several weeks investigating medical malpractice at various hospitals in New Jersey. One of the most compelling cases she'd come across was a guy who'd been treated at PPTH – the guy Sue had been interviewing when Mad-Eye had asked for Alice's opinion of his trustworthiness. He'd been told he had lung cancer, but the diagnosis was wrong and the mistake had only been uncovered after he'd started chemotherapy. Sue had been pulling together a "medical disasters" dossier, with that case as the highlight, and Mad-Eye was right, it was a great story.

"I can't believe you get this story because you're fucking a doctor," Sue said, handing over her file.

"Sorry." Alice shrugged. She knew that Sue would forgive her again in a few days. That's what had happened last time Mad-Eye pulled one of these tricks. "But I don't think this is going to be much fun for me. Doctors stick together, right?"

Sue nodded. "Yep. It's been like blood from a stone to get info from some of the hospitals."

"So I don't know why Mad-Eye thinks I'll have some special access pass just 'cause my boyfriend is one of them." Alice realised that was the first time she'd called House her boyfriend and she felt a little tingle go through her.

"Well, you might be able to get some insights. Mind you, you could have introduced us and I could probably have spoken to him myself, but anyway . . . "

"I'm sorry Sue. It sucks that Mad-Eye did this to you. But remember that story about the corruption in the mayor's office?"

Sue sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I remember. You did all the legwork on that one, I got the byline."

"Swings and roundabouts."

"You're right, but I'm still going to be pissed for a while." She gave Alice a grim smile.

"I get that. Besides, I really don't think this is going to be fun for me." Alice felt conflicting emotions warring inside her. She was excited, as she normally would be, about an interesting and compelling story that she could investigate and write. But she also felt apprehensive, for reasons she couldn't quite pin down.

* * *

--

House was having lunch with Wilson and he was in a good mood. He'd even paid for Wilson's lunch and it had felt like the whole cafeteria had stopped in a moment of reverence for such a hallowed event.

"You obviously got laid last night," Wilson said, still slightly pale with the shock.

"I was at a dinner party last night that's featured in the paper today, in the _Princeton People_ column." House had checked the paper at the hospital's bookstore, and he'd been disappointed that neither he nor Alice were in any of the photos that had been published. Just because it diluted the crowing he could do to Wilson.

"Yeah, but I bet you still got laid."

"I got laid in the bathroom _at_ the dinner party."

Wilson made a disgusted face. "House, you need training. It doesn't seem like Alice is the woman to do it, if she lets you do things like that."

"Alice is _excellent_ training," House objected.

"I went to your place the other night and you weren't home. Have you moved in with her?"

House wasn't sure if he'd say that, exactly. He really enjoyed spending time at Alice's house, it was comfortable, the fridge was always stocked thanks to some delivery service she had in place, and it was big enough that even when they were both home they didn't have to be in each other's space all the time. It was, he had to admit, kind of perfect, although he was beginning to miss his instruments, particularly his piano.

"Nah. I've just been spending a bit of time there."

"Right." Wilson didn't push, but House could hear the disbelief in his voice. He could understand why Wilson would think he'd moved in. Things had gone fast with Stacy – she'd moved in with him after a week. It was just like with a medical decision: when House was sure about something, he was sure. Not that he was about to propose or anything, but life with Alice was pleasurable, and when it came to pleasure, House wasn't really into self-denial.

"I told you House, girls are _nice_. I'm glad you're having fun."

House prickled at Wilson's self-congratulatory tone, as if it was all Wilson's doing that House was happy. It was House's natural reaction to want to deflate that.

"Well, it probably won't last, so I figure I'd better get in as much sex as I can."

"Why won't it last?"

"Duh? This is _me_ we're talking about, Wilson."

Wilson shook his head. "House, you are perfectly capable of having a functional relationship with another human being. You just chose to ignore that because of some twisted little idea that not doing that makes you special. Well, here's a heads up: it doesn't make you special, it makes you lonely."

Wilson's lecture didn't seem to make a dint in House's countenance, the words and tone too familiar to be effective. "Wilson, Alice is great, but I'm being realistic." House shrugged and decided it was time to change the subject. "What about you? You've done the grieving thing. Surely the paint's dry on that subject?"

Wilson sighed, but this time House could tell it _wasn't_ about House's typical insensitivity about the whole "Amber" subject. With a small sense of surprise, House realised that his friend actually had been starting to think about re-entering the romantic realm_. About time,_ House thought.

"I'm starting to realise that my chances of finding someone are getting slim," Wilson said with a tone of resignation. "It's statistics. At my age all the good women are already married. The only women left on the market are either bitter and twisted about their divorces or desperate to have a baby five minutes after the first date."

House thought about Wilson's comments. Alice was pretty bitter about her divorce, he thought, but she really didn't talk about it too much and it didn't seem to be having too much of an effect on the way things between them were working. And as for birth control – she'd said she was on the pill and, well, he'd really just taken her word for it. After the conversation he'd overheard at the dinner party and his discussion with Alice in the cab on the way home, he suddenly felt a little nervous about that.

Wilson looked totally crestfallen about the whole romantic scenario and House wasn't sure whether he could be bothered to try to cheer him up with words of what House would knew would be false encouragement. House had been single for a very long time and, for the moment, Alice was anomaly in what House had decided would pretty much be a solitary life. He was resigned to life on his own; but he wondered how long Wilson could actually last without female companionship.

"So how's your lawsuit going?" he asked, changing the subject.

"It sucks. There's something about this guy – I never liked him."

"Hmmm, a patient of yours that you didn't want to sleep with? Will wonders never cease?"

"House," Wilson said with his familiar warning tone. He sighed. "According to the hospital lawyer he's really pushing the case. He wants huge damages and is even considering suing the hospital for vicarious liability. He wants as much money as he can get."

"That sucks."

"Yeah."

The two doctors sat in silence for a while, eating their lunch, lost in separate trains of thought.

Wilson finished his salad and broke into House's musings.

"House, I have to get back, I've got a patient arriving in ten minutes."

"Okay."

"Look, I hope you can just enjoy things with Alice. Don't get too caught up in what it all means or analyse it to death the way you do. Just have fun and see where it takes you."

"Yeah."

"And thanks for lunch." Wilson gave House a wry smile. "She might be dragging you off for sex in bathrooms, but perhaps she might just be having a good influence on you."

Wilson walked off before House could come back with a witty retort. House watched his friend as the cafeteria doors closed behind him and wondered if he could actually follow Wilson's advice. Could he turn off his brain enough to just take things with Alice one step at a time instead of trying to put together the individual pieces to create a pattern or a theory that would tell him what was going to happen next?

When he got home later that day – realising to himself that he thought the word 'home' about Alice's house – he went into the bathroom and opened the top drawer. He was relieved to find a pack of Levlen, lying next to her moisturiser. She'd forgotten a pill earlier in the month, the Thursday bubble still had its little yellow disk inside, and she was due for her period next week. But otherwise it was up to date and she'd definitely taken her pill that morning. He felt a little guilty about checking behind her back, but it was better to be sure. He figured she'd never know anyway.

* * *

--

When Alice got home that night House was already there and had ordered an extravagant amount of Chinese takeout. Alice gratefully accepted the food and they spread out in the living room, eating from the coffee table and with the TV on. She'd spent all afternoon catching up on Sue's research and beginning some of her own and she was exhausted.

Once they'd finished their meal they sat back, watching some stupid sitcom that had an annoying laugh track about every thirty seconds. Alice reached for the remote and turned down the volume a little.

"Have you ever been sued for malpractice?"

He smirked.

"Now you're assuming I know you better than I do." She frowned at him. "Either that smile means you've never been sued and you're insulted that I've asked, or you get sued all the time and you're smirking because it's a dumb question."

His facial expression didn't change.

She thought about what he'd told her about his practice, his patients and his relationships with various colleagues. She sighed. "It's a dumb question, isn't it?"

"You catch on quick." He reached for a leftover egg roll and began munching. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, since he met you at the dinner party, my boss has now discovered I have an 'in' in the medical world. He wants me to do a story on medical malpractice cases in New Jersey. He thinks you'll be able to help me with research and contacts."

House frowned. "And are you going to do it?"

Alice gave him a look of disbelief. "He's my boss. It's not like I have a choice."

"But what if you have to report on me? I've been sued about every six months for the past five years, on average. I'm one of the most frequently-sued doctors in the state. I got a trophy from my attorney and everything."

"Really?" Alice was shocked. His name hadn't come up in her research that afternoon at all. Princeton Plainsboro obviously had very good lawyers. "Well, I'm not going to report on you. But I have to do the story." Alice hoped she could keep that promise.

"Why? Why not just get someone else to do it?"

"Greg I can't just pick and chose what stories I do! Do you get to choose your patients?"

"Pretty much."

She was surprised. "You do not. I don't believe you."

He shrugged. "I don't care if you believe me."

"You're telling me that you can pick and choose the sick people you like and don't like?"

"I'm saying I generally get to choose which cases I spend time on."

"_Generally?_" she echoed sarcastically. She could tell he was getting annoyed with her.

"I've never treated a patient I didn't want to treat – not including the clinic and that doesn't count."

"You're mincing words." Alice could tell they were sliding down a slippery slope towards a fight, but for some reason she couldn't seem to stop herself. "Right, so let me get this straight. If a sick person needs diagnosing, but you're not interested or don't like the look of them, you just let them die?"

He gave her a withering look. "And I actually thought you were intelligent."

"What?" That stung, and his ice cold tone gave her a shiver. He got up and Alice thought for a moment he was going to walk out, but he just paced back and forth. She'd seen him do that when his leg was sore; he obviously did it when he was irritated too.

He gave her a dismissive look. "I thought you were an intelligent woman and I've been proven wrong. I guess I should have expected it. You don't find many women who can fuck like whores _and_ who actually have an ounce of sense."

Alice gaped at him. His comment was so outlandish she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I can't believe you said that."

He blew out an annoyed breath and turned to face her, speaking as if he was explaining the obvious to a silly child. "Alice I'm a doctor. You're writing an investigative piece about medical mistakes. You admitted you want to use me for research. I can't see how you think I'll be happy about that."

Alice's first instinct was to fight, and she felt the full force of her red-head's temper building up steam inside her. But she held back. Normally she would never shy away from a heated discussion, but she decided right then and there: no more fighting for fighting's sake. No more punching people because she was so angry it couldn't be contained. The pieces fell together in her mind. Some of the cruel, vicious things she and Stuart had said to each other in the final months of their marriage still hurt deeply. She never wanted to be hurt like that – or to hurt someone else like that – again.

Besides, as much as she might not like to admit it, he _was_ right.

She swallowed hard, trying to restrain the automatic adrenaline response that had flooded her system at his attack.

"You're right," she said quietly.

He gave her a puzzled look, he obviously hadn't expected the abrupt change in pace. "Yes. I am. But why are you admitting it?"

"I . . . don't want to fight. I don't mind discussing or debating or even arguing, but I don't want to fight. Ever. After my ex-husband . . . " She trailed off, figuring she'd given him enough information to put two and two together. "I'll tell Mad-Eye tomorrow that I can't do the story."

He gave her a curt nod. "Okay."

Alice turned the sound up on the television again as he sat down and they watched the sitcom a while longer. As the credits were rolling, Alice leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Do I really fuck like a whore?"

She could see he was worried for a moment, concerned that despite her "no fighting" rule she was bringing up his insult. But then he clearly saw the sparkle in her eye.

"No, you don't." He pulled her half into his lap and kissed her thoroughly. "You're much better."

* * *

--

After the sitcom finished, House found a documentary about some recently discovered Etruscan tomb. He seemed enthralled, so Alice left him to it, heading down the hallway to the room she called her office.

When they'd bought the house, Alice had decorated this room for Stuart but he'd never spent much time there. He had told her later – in very precise and spiteful detail – that he'd never liked it. At first Alice had been upset by Stuart's rejection of the room, but then she decided that it didn't matter that it had been meant to be a man's room, she loved it, and she adopted it as her own. She closed the door behind her and was wrapped in the silence afforded by the thick carpets on the floor.

Alice had taken her inspiration from old English manor homes, and had created a gentleman's study that would not be out of place in the Cotswolds. The walls were lined with glass-doored oak bookcases filled with books that were mostly Alice's. About a third of the cases were now empty because Stuart had taken his books with him, but Alice was kind of looking forward to filling them with new purchases. The floor was topped with a plush red Turkish rug, and a huge oak desk dominated the room. Leather brown, royal red and warm timber colours dominated. A couple of over-stuffed but very comfortable armchairs and some large floor pillows were the only other furniture in the room. The windows had heavy drapes, so if the day was sunny Alice could pull them right back and lie on the floor with a pillow in the sunshine, and if the weather was bad, she could pull them tight and turn on the desk lamp to make the room atmospheric and cosy.

Tonight the rain against the windows called for cosy. For no apparent reason she pulled out her favourite copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ – one of about a dozen beautifully illustrated versions she'd been given over the years – and curled up in a chair.

She'd read up to the part where the suddenly shrunken Alice was swimming in a pool of her own tears, crying because she couldn't get into the beautiful garden or get back home either, when she heard the door open a crack.

"I wondered where you'd got to," House asked. He stood in the doorway, perhaps sensing that the room was Alice's private retreat and that permission was needed to enter.

"Come in," Alice offered.

He walked in and, before sitting himself down in the other armchair, reached over and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of one finger. "This is a great room," he said, swivelling his head around to take it in.

Alice hadn't even realised she'd been crying. She wondered if she'd just been lost in Lewis Carroll's world so entirely that she'd been crying for poor, lost Alice – or if she _was_ poor, lost Alice.

"Yeah, I . . . " Alice had been about to tell him all about the Stuart-factor, but decided against revisiting it. "I love it. It's my favourite."

"It would be my favourite if you moved the Xbox and the TV in here."

"I think that would pretty much ruin it," Alice said with a little laugh.

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"I haven't even seen your place."

House shrugged. "Actually, it looks a bit like this. Lots of books and dark colours. Except not as clean."

"I'd like to see your place. And maybe meet some of your friends."

"Okay. But I only have one_ friend_," he said emphasising the singular, "so that won't take long. Why is _Alice_ making you cry?"

"Sympathy, I think. I'm feeling a bit like I fell down a rabbit hole and now I'm lost," Alice answered, surprised by the words even as she said them. Alice liked to think she was emotionally intelligent, but that was primarily when it came to reading other people. When it came to understanding herself, sometimes she had absolutely no idea what was going on inside her own head. Occasionally, someone would ask, and the answer would tumble out of her mouth and she'd think, _ah, yes, that's it._

"You're worried about Dinah," House said perceptively.

"Yeah, I think so." He was right. Like storybook Alice who was worried about the cat she'd left at home, grownup Alice was worried about the pre-House life she seemed to have left behind. It had taken a long time to learn to stand on her own two feet after Stuart, and now, after just a few weeks together, she knew she was in deep with House. She was perhaps only just realising how much he meant to her, even so soon, and the thought was terrifying. Especially given that she had no idea how he felt.

"Am I the white rabbit?" he asked.

_As if you need to ask that question_, Alice thought. "Well, you have led me astray, but I think you're probably more suited to being the Mad Hatter."

"I do like his quotes the best," House said with a smile. "But I hate tea."

"Him or the Cheshire Cat."

"Not the caterpillar? '_Who are you?'_" He put on what Alice guessed was an approximation of a caterpillar's voice. "Do you have a hookah here? It looks like the kind of room that should have a hookah."

Alice decided to ignore the caterpillar's question, especially because she wasn't sure if she could answer it. "You're right. We should go to Egypt and buy a hookah."

"Okay."

She frowned at him. He looked perfectly serious. "You really want to go to Egypt?"

"Sure." He got up and kissed her forehead, then made his way to the door, pausing with his hand on the doorhandle. "Alice, don't forget, I fell down the rabbit hole too."

He closed the door and Alice smiled.


	12. Chapter 12

On Monday afternoon, Alice came home early and crawled into bed for a nap. The Friday before, after the almost-fight with House, she'd tried her hardest to talk Mad-Eye out of doing the malpractice story, and in the face of his blunt refusal had then tried to plead for it to be given back to Sue. Mad-Eye let her beg for a while – probably because he was a sick bastard who enjoyed that sort of thing – but he wasn't having any of it. He'd bluntly told her to turn in the story or turn in her resignation.

Thankfully she'd been spared spending the weekend with House, either trying to explain what had happened or avoiding the subject. He'd called her Friday to say he had a critically ill patient and either he was sleeping at his place or he wasn't sleeping at all, because she hadn't seen him or heard from him apart from a text message on Sunday to say he was still at the hospital.

Her entire Monday at work had been a struggle and in the mid-afternoon when her research had turned up a case involving House, Alice had given up on the story, given in to the hormones that were adding to her stress, making her feel tired and nauseous, and gone home to bed.

A couple of hours after putting herself to bed Alice was woken by the sound of the front door slamming shut.

"Alice?"

She blinked and stretched and checked the clock, it was after six. "In the bedroom."

House appeared in the doorway shortly after. He looked wrecked: haggard, tired and old.

"How is everything?" she asked.

"Yeah, worked it out in the end. Turned out to be syringomyelia."

"I don't even know what that is."

"No, and count yourself lucky. What are you doing in bed?"

"I have my period and I feel like shit," Alice said bluntly, which was the truth, just not all of it. A small, malicious part of her took pleasure in seeing the immediate dimming of the spark in his eyes that had flared briefly when he'd asked why she was in bed.

"Oh. Well, I'm hungry." He turned and walked out and Alice heard the clatter of crockery and food preparation out in the kitchen a moment later.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks for asking." Alice half-heartedly threw a cushion across the room. She understood rationally that it was probably a bit much to ask for sympathy. He'd just spent the past few days saving someone who was probably dying, so he probably wasn't go to be too concerned over a headache and a few cramps. Logically, she also knew that that wasn't really why she was annoyed, and that she was angry with herself, not him. It was just easier to project her frustration outwards.

Alice was still lying in bed wondering whether she was just in far too foul a mood to be bothered with getting up when he came back into the bedroom with a plate heaped with leftover salad and pasta. He put the plate down on the nightstand before quickly stripping down to boxers and t-shirt and climbing into bed.

"Oh, I forgot." He reached over the side of the bed and from the back pocket of his discarded jeans he pulled out a family-sized bar of chocolate Alice knew had been in her cupboard. He threw it on the bed between them – as if he was tossing a fish to a hungry and unpredictable hippopotamus, Alice thought. That task completed, he leaned back against the pillows, picked up the plate and began eating ravenously.

Alice crossed her arms, still irritated. She wasn't sure if even chocolate would work to diffuse the black dog that had settled over her. She waited, to be cajoled, comforted or sympathised with, but it didn't come. He just ate, methodically working his way through the huge amount of food on his plate. Alice had to wonder if he'd eaten anything for the past three days.

Finally, with a heartfelt sigh that he also ignored, Alice reached for the chocolate and opened the wrapper, greedily shoving three squares into her mouth.

House finished his meal and dumped the empty plate on the floor. He yawned.

"I'm so tired," he complained. "I need to sleep for about a week. C'm'ere." He snuggled down into bed and pulled on Alice's arm until he could curl around her body.

"Ew, you stink," Alice complained, pulling away. He really did smell, and not just of male sweat and musk, but of unwashed hair and clothes that had been lived in for too long.

"Well excuse me for being too busy to clean up while I was working to save someone's life."

"Go and shower," Alice demanded. "Or you're not sleeping in my bed."

"What? Oh for fuck's sake Alice, I'm exhausted. Just close your nose or something. I'll shower in the morning."

"No! That's it, if you're not showering, I'm not sleeping here." Alice jumped out of bed. Yelling at him felt so satisfying; Alice wanted to find a way to do it some more.

"Fine," he said, settling down into the bed and closing his eyes.

"Oh!" Alice sighed in exasperation.

She waited, hands on hips, but he didn't budge. In the end, seeing as she'd made such a fuss, she felt she had no choice but to go and sleep in another bedroom.

And she didn't sleep well at all.

* * *

--

The next morning, Alice was standing at the photocopier copying some of the medical documents the wrongly-diagnosed cancer guy had given to Sue when someone's mobile phone rang. It was obnoxiously loud, an old disco song, _You Sexy Thing_ by Hot Chocolate.

"Is someone going to answer that?" Alice demanded. It was really getting under her skin. Not that it was taking much to annoy her that morning. On top of her poor night's sleep, Mad-Eye had called her into his office again, read her the riot act for dragging her heels on the story, and given her until Friday to submit it. Alice still had no idea how she was going to get the "inside" info from House that Mad-Eye expected, and, of course, she still hadn't told House that she hadn't got out of doing it in the first place.

The annoying phone rang out without being answered and immediately rang again.

_I believe in miracles_

_Since you came along_

_You sexy thing_

"For God's sake answer it!" she snapped.

"It's your phone, Alice!" Phillip, the staff reporter who sat nearby called back, making his irritation clear.

"No, it can't be . . . " Alice muttered, feeling her face heat up as she flushed red with embarrassment. She ran over to her desk and, sure enough, it was her phone. She looked at the screen: _Greg_. A couple of people looked up and gave her looks of annoyance and amusement. She answered the phone just to stop the noise.

"Good morning hormonal Harriet, is it safe to speak?" He sounded ridiculously cheerful.

"Did you change my ring tone?" Alice demanded.

"I might have given my number a ring tone that would help you to remember who was calling."

Despite herself, Alice couldn't help but smile. "_You sexy thing_?"

"Precisely."

Alice walked away from her desk, over to an empty lounge area where the call was less likely to be over heard. She'd wanted to apologise to him, but that morning, when she'd left for work, he'd still been so deeply asleep she'd let him be.

"I'm sorry I was grumpy last night."

"I'm sorry I was stinky." He sounded sincere, but lowered his voice and Alice wondered if he didn't want anyone to overhear him admit that.

"No, you were fine. You had a reason. I was out of line."

"Apparently PMS can now be used in court as a murder defence."

"Well, I don't plan on taking it that far."

"Good. And maybe I'll take a long weekend on the coast somewhere next month."

"I promise to provide you with suitable warning next time."

"Deal. Do you think a change of scene might help? Would you like to come visit me tonight?"

"At your place?"

"Yeah. There's an Italian restaurant just down the road, we could go there for dinner and then spend the night at my place. I promise to spend a long time in the bathroom taking a dump so you can rifle through the drawers and invade my privacy."

She chuckled. "Why are you so happy?"

"I'm not 'happy'. I'm never 'happy'. But if I was ever to get close to that state of being, then having just solved a tough case, having had a fantastic night's sleep, and looking forward to a date with a sexy woman would have to come close."

Alice was sure he could see her grin through the phone. "Sounds great."

He gave her the address and then hung up without saying goodbye, a habit of his Alice still hadn't quite got used to. She walked back to her desk and the pile of papers immediately wiped the smile from her face.

Before she had a chance to think further about the fact that she still hadn't told him about the story her phone rang again. Thankfully it was her usual ringtone, he must have changed the settings so the song only applied to calls from him.

"Alice McKenzie?" a shaky voice asked.

"Yes, speaking."

"Alice this is Simon Ferguson. Sue Murdoch asked me to call you."

"Oh, yes, Simon." _Shit, the cancer-guy_. Alice needed to speak to him, to organise an interview, and soon. "Can we meet? I need to speak you about the story, I mean, about your experiences."

He coughed, sounding as if he was almost at death's door, then took a shallow, phlegmy breath that Alice could hear in disgusting detail through the phone. "Sorry Alice, but I'm not doing well this week. I just don't think I'm up to it. Could we do it next week instead?"

Alice felt a wave of relief. She couldn't finish the story without Simon's interview, and him not being healthy enough was a great excuse that Mad-Eye would have to accept. She knew that this was doing nothing except prolonging the issue, but with more time up her sleeve, she felt as if she could perhaps find a way to explain things to House, or to find a way to do the story that would satisfy both her boss and her boyfriend. _Yeah, and Scylla and Charybdis was a nice sunny vacation spot too. _

"I'm sorry to hear that Simon. Sure, let's reschedule for next week."

"Thanks Alice, I appreciate it." His voice was barely a whisper. "In the meantime, you might like to look into the doctor that caused all this. My lawyers think he's going to offer me a settlement because he's trying to avoid any publicity about his mistake."

"Are you accepting it?"

"You think money can make up for what I've been through?"

_Yes, _Alice thought cynically. If he was like most people, it just depended on how much. "I'm sure this hasn't been easy for you," Alice said consolingly instead. He was still a source and right now Alice needed him on side.

He gave a dark laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. This doctor should be stripped of his licence before he can do this to anyone else. He seems all kind and professional, but he's a bumbling idiot."

"And what's his name?" Alice grabbed a pen and paper.

"Doctor James Wilson."

"Right." Alice jotted down the name. "Well, thanks Simon. Take care. I'll be in touch next week."

"_Look forward to it._ Bye."

"Bye."

Alice hung up the call slowly. Something about the whole conversation rubbed her the wrong way. _It's my spidey senses tingling_. Alice knew the only way to let that part of her brain do its work was to let the thoughts boil away without trying to think about them too hard. She sat at her desk and picked up a Rubik's cube. Alice had no idea how to solve the stupid thing, but for some reason the rhythmic turning of it helped her think. She sat back in her chair, puzzling it all over.

* * *

--

House watched Alice's expression as she looked around his living room. For a moment he saw it through her eyes and, instead of the haven that had been his private space for a number of years now, he saw something different. Evidence of intelligence sure: lots of books, jazz posters, the piano. But seen through a stranger's eye it was kind of cold, impersonal. House wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but he'd had a decorator come in when he'd first moved in. Buying furniture and all that was something that didn't interest him. It had been easier to outsource, get someone else to take care of it all. He'd been reading _Rolling Stone_ and there had been an article about Keith Richards, accompanied by a photo of him in his study. House had liked it, thrown the magazine at the decorator and said "make it look something like this". He'd liked the final result, but apart from adding more books, more musical instruments, and the occasional bit of whimsy he'd really not added anything personal to the decorator's original touches.

"I like your place better," he admitted.

Alice gave him a curious look. "Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe because you tend to be more naked there."

Alice smiled and House couldn't stop himself from grabbing her and pulling her into a kiss. Given the events of last night and his patient, it had been several days since he'd kissed her, and he couldn't believe how much he missed it. Or how quickly he'd gotten used to having someone around to kiss regularly.

The fell back onto the sofa and House just followed his instincts, letting a hand crawl inside her sweater, cupping her lace-covered breast in one hand.

"Hey, lover boy," Alice said, pulling back from his touch. "Dinner first. You need to pace yourself."

House took a deep breath, not wanting to let Alice see how much just a kiss and quick grope had affected him.

"You're right." He pulled back, but knew he couldn't stand just yet. Luckily Alice's eye was caught and she got up. She walked over to the piano and ran a hand over it.

"I didn't know you played. I get the idea that music's important to you."

"Yeah. Your place would be perfect if it had a piano." House hadn't told her but over the weekend, when he'd been dealing with the then-mysterious patient, the only time he'd spent away from the hospital he'd come here, to play. He'd thought about going to Alice's, wondering if a quick roll in the hay might cause inspiration to strike, but he'd decided he needed to be alone.

"You know that room off the kitchen at my place?" Alice asked.

"Yeah?" He'd gone in there briefly to grab towels when they'd had a spa one evening. It was currently a storeroom, with some boxes and cupboards filled with towels and sheets.

"Stuart always wanted to turn that into a music studio. It's been soundproofed, but that's as far as he got. The guitar lasted about six months." She sighed. "God I hate _Stairway to Heaven._"

House chuckled. "That room would make a good studio."

"I'd love a piano in the house. I learned it as a kid, but I haven't touched one for years. Will you play for me?"

"Maybe later. Are you hungry?"

"Sure."

"I hope you don't mind, but I invited a friend of mine to join us for dinner."

"A friend? _The_ friend?"

"Yep."

"Cool." She smiled and House felt that warmth that she seemed to provoke in him. "Let's go."

They got to the restaurant a little early, but that was okay by House. He was kind of regretting inviting Wilson now, wanting more time alone with Alice. They ordered a bottle of wine and were just discussing the menu when Wilson arrived.

"Hi," he said, a little out of breath. "Sorry I'm late; I got caught with a patient. It's lovely to see you again Alice, especially in a different setting."

House recalled that Wilson had removed Alice's stitches in the clinic as he gave her one of those patented James-Wilson-charming smiles that he did, the kind of smile that had ended up in him being married three times. House watched Alice's reaction carefully.

"It's lovely to meet you properly," she said, but she didn't give him anything other than a friendly, but slightly nervous, smile in return. _Perhaps Wilson's charm didn't work on _every_ woman._ House was surprised to find himself relieved about that.

"Wilson, this is Alice McKenzie. Alice this is James Wilson." House did the introductions. He saw Alice's face pale a little, her eyes going wide. She covered it well, shaking hands with Wilson and taking her seat, but House's practiced eyes noticed she seemed upset or disturbed.

Wilson busied himself taking off his coat and giving it to the waiter. House took advantage of the distraction to lean over to her. "Are you okay?"

She gave him a brief smile – yep, she was definitely uncomfortable about something. He just didn't know what. "I'm fine. I think I just probably need to eat."

House nodded, but wasn't convinced. He left it there, but made a mental note to check in with her later to make sure there wasn't anything more seriously wrong.

The meal was pleasant; Alice didn't seem too perturbed when he and Wilson occasionally got carried away with hospital talk. He guessed it was her journalism background, but Alice seemed good at asking questions, good at keeping conversation going.

He and Wilson were talking about one of Wilson's patients – a not unattractive woman Wilson had brought up a few times in the past few days and House was wondering what else might be going on. He hoped that his friend had learnt his lesson about going there. Alice interrupted their discussion about her treatment.

"James, a colleague of mine has just found out she has lung cancer," Alice said. House frowned at her, she hadn't said anything to him, but then he guessed he hadn't really been around for a few days.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Wilson was appropriately sympathetic.

"She's just had her first round of chemo. How sick will she get and how long will it last?"

"Well, it's hard to say, it depends on how serious the cancer is, whether it's spread, and what sort of treatment she's having."

"But if, say, she only needed one lot of chemo, would she still be sick after two months or would the effects have subsided by then?"

"Why do you need to know?" House's instincts were piqued. It was a very specific question.

Alice gave him a quick smile and turned back to Wilson. "Oh, it's nothing important really. Before she got sick we'd talked about going on a vacation together. When I saw her yesterday she was telling me that she thought she'd be fine to go in a couple of months."

Wilson shrugged. "It's really hard to know – some people have hardly any side effects, some people really suffer. But if she's reasonably fit and if she only has one lot of chemo, I'd guess she'd be well enough after two months."

The thought of Alice going on vacation with someone else made House feel all kinds of weird emotions that – if he didn't know better – he would have described as jealousy.

"Hey," House interrupted. He reached a hand under the table and squeezed her thigh. "I thought we were going to Egypt?"

Alice looked flustered and House felt pleased that he'd managed to unsettle her with just a touch of his hand.

"Egypt?" Wilson asked.

"It's a long story," Alice said. "Are you guys having dessert? I saw they had mud cake."

"Haven't you eaten enough chocolate?" House asked. He'd seen the wrapper in the trash that morning – overnight she'd eaten the entire bar of chocolate he'd brought into the bedroom.

"There's no such thing as _enough_ chocolate," Wilson interrupted diplomatically and House didn't miss the grateful glance Alice shot his way.

House raised an arm to attract the waitress's attention. "Mud cake all round."

* * *

--

"My bed's not as nice as yours. Are you sure you don't want to go over to your place?" House closed the door behind Alice. After dessert, they'd said their goodbyes to Wilson and headed home.

"Greg, both our cars are here, we've both had just enough wine to make us possibly over the limit, and I'm tired. Besides, I'd like to sleep here. I haven't had a chance to rifle through your private papers yet."

She gave him a cheeky grin and House immediately gave in. He poured them both a whisky and sunk into his favourite position on the sofa, flicking on the television. He realised that the couch had become a bit lumpy over the years, adapting to his ass and the position he always sat in when watching TV.

"Hey, shift over."

House made room for Alice, but just enough for her to sit down, then sprawled himself out again, his legs in her lap. "Your sofas are better too."

Alice just shook her head and sipped her whisky.

"So tell me the James Wilson story," she asked.

"What story?

"How do you know each other?"

House waved an arm. He wasn't really interested in sharing all that – not that he minded Alice knowing, he just couldn't be bothered talking. Even though he'd slept well the night before, he was still tired from his intense weekend and was disappointed that Alice was _indisposed_, as they used to say in the old days.

They sat for a while watching something stupid on television. House was distracted by Alice rubbing his legs, her hands moving up inside his jeans to trace the muscles of his calves. It wasn't an entirely pleasurable sensation because her fingers often pulled on the hairs on his legs, but it was undeniably arousing too. He let out a groan.

Alice reached over for the remote and turned off the TV. "I don't want to have sex, but do you think we could, you know . . . fool around?"

House gave her a questioning look as if he wasn't quite sure what it was she was asking. She didn't say anything further, but stretched out and unbuckled his belt. She reached inside his boxers and freed his cock. He wasn't hard yet, but he knew it wasn't going to take long. Watching as Alice bent to him, her mouth taking him in, was incredibly arousing. But it brought back memories of the only other time he'd had sex on his sofa – and that was with someone he'd paid for the privilege. He didn't want that associated with her. He put a hand to her jaw, pulling her away. "No, I don't want to do it here. Let's go in the bedroom."

In the bedroom, they stripped to underwear and House pulled back the covers. He'd changed the sheets and he wasn't entirely sure why he felt so uncomfortable about Alice being in his bed. She didn't give him much time to think about it though, pushing him down, crawling over him and taking up where she'd left off in the living room. Despite her being in his bed for the first time, it felt like they'd known each other for much longer than a couple of weeks. If only because her mouth and hands had learned him so well.

* * *

--

The next day House was in Cuddy's office. She was trying to get him to treat one of the hospital's biggest donors who had mysterious chest pains. House was sure it was just ordinary everyday angina, but he didn't have any other patients, so he knew he'd end up doing this task for her. But he wanted to make Cuddy sweat a bit for it and besides, arguing with her was so much fun.

Just as he was making a final, very effective point, his mobile phone rang. Even Cuddy froze as the music rang out.

_I search myself_

_I want you to find me_

_I forget myself_

_I want you to remind me_

House began to smile because he recognised the song and could tell the chorus was about to ring out.

_I don't want anybody else_

_When I think about you _

_I touch myself _

House looked at the screen: _Alice_. He laughed.

Cuddy looked faintly disgusted.

* * *

--

_You Sexy Thing,_ Hot Chocolate, Brown, 1975

_I Touch Myself,_ The Divinyls, Amphlett, Kelly, Steinberg, McEntee, 1991


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **Hmmm, lots of readers, few reviews. Do you not like? I do need your love, it feeds my writer's soul!

* * *

--

Alice made it through to Friday evening without too much grief from Mad-Eye about the malpractice story. He'd taken Simon's ill health as a reasonable excuse, but Alice knew the reprieve wasn't going to last forever.

She'd spent time investigating James Wilson, including speaking to some of his former patients. None of them had a bad word to say about him, which pretty much reinforced the perception of him she'd gained over dinner. _The _dinner. Alice shook her head just thinking about it. She'd felt like running out of the restaurant screaming when House had made the introductions. Not only that, Alice had been chastising herself ever since that she hadn't made the connection between the name "James Wilson" and the Doctor Wilson who'd treated her when she'd returned to the clinic. Although, she sheepishly had to admit, she'd pretty much forgotten everything once she'd seen House again and started flirting with him.

James Wilson had been lovely, both at dinner and in the clinic. She knew that removing a few stitches was a long way from diagnosing cancer, but if his treatment of her was anything to go by, he was kind, professional, gentle and sweet. It just didn't fit with the incompetent, careless doctor that Simon Ferguson had described.

She also spent time investigating the wrongly-diagnosed patient. So far she hadn't been able to find out much about him. That could mean something, or nothing – lots of ordinary, everyday people didn't necessarily pop up in the kinds of searches Alice was able to do.

But it was Friday night and Alice was trying to put the working week behind her. She was in the kitchen, cooking a roast chicken, drinking a martini and feeling every bit the fifties housewife. The last call from House earlier in the day had been to tell her he had a new patient, and that he'd probably be home for dinner – although she knew well enough now to know that his "probably" was a very rough estimate. She'd reasoned that even if he didn't make it home in time, she could plate up a meal for him to re-heat. He always seemed to come home from marathon diagnostic sessions ravenous.

Oh, yes, Alice was fifteen kinds of domestic these days. And what was more surprising was that she didn't seem to mind.

Alice had the music playing so loud she almost missed her phone. She grabbed it just in time, slightly disappointed that she'd missed the silly ringtone song. He hadn't called much in the past few days.

"What are you doing?" a gruff voice asked.

He never said goodbye and he often didn't say hello, either. Alice was trying to get used to it.

"Cooking."

Although she figured he was most likely calling to say he wouldn't be home for dinner, Alice felt pretty cheery as she danced across the kitchen to grab a saucepan from the cupboard. She had the weekend ahead and she'd drunk most of a martini, which always helped.

"Cooking?" He sounded surprised and Alice had to revise the little mental Suzy Homemaker image of herself she'd been daydreaming about. She realised that this was the first time she'd cooked something from scratch for him. Opened packets, reheated stuff, boiled pasta, sure, but actual cooking? Not so much.

"And drinking." That was more like her.

"Cooking what?"

"Roast chicken. In case you make it home."

"Drinking what?"

"My patented Bombay Sapphire martini."

He made a noise that Alice could only describe as a jealous groan.

"I'm the perfect little housewife, didn't you know?"

He dropped his voice. "What are you wearing?"

Alice had just taken the chicken out of the oven, so she had an oven mitt on one hand, tongs in the other, and was wearing jeans and a dirty black t-shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail because she hadn't been bothered to wash it that morning.

"Black lingerie and a pink frilly apron," she answered seductively.

"Oh God."

"And lace-top stockings with strappy stilettos."

"Christ. You're torturing me."

"Oh no!" Alice gave a fake, silly squeal. "I just accidentally spilled chocolate sauce all over my breasts. Whatever shall I do?"

Over the phone Alice could hear the bang of a door in the background and some female's voice began reciting a string of indecipherable medical terms.

"Hang on," he said into the phone angrily, but Alice knew the anger wasn't directed at her.

She giggled as she listened to House utter furious instructions to the person who had interrupted. She quickly basted the chicken and popped it back into the oven, taking a quick swig of her martini along the way.

"Alice, are you there?"

"Yes, I just had to take my bra off. Oh! I'm a little chilly now and my nipples—"

"Shut up," he growled. "I just sent my idiot underlings off to run tests that are going to take at least an hour. I think I've got time to make it over there, eat dinner, ravish you and get back here before they're finished. I'm assuming you're back in action, hormonally speaking?"

"I'm all yours, baby."

"You bet you are." His voice was thick with desire and Alice heard the rattle of keys just before he ended the call.

"Oh." All of Alice's light teasing was suddenly lost in a wave of pure lust. She felt a throb of anticipation in her groin and could feel that her body was already making itself ready for him. She looked down at herself in her dirty jeans and wondered if he really would be expecting black lingerie. She figured he'd know she'd been teasing, but she probably had just enough time for a quick shower and to slip into new underwear and a dress. She turned off the heat on the stove top, made one last check on the chicken and then ran to the bathroom.

Alice was showered, dressed and back in the kitchen checking on the food when she heard the roar of a motorbike, followed by the front door opening and slamming shut again.

"Hi honey!" She kept up her cute, housewifely tone. "Would you like a drink?"

He was already unbuttoning his shirt as he walked into the kitchen and Alice frowned. Being keen was one thing, but he was eyeing her like _she_ was the roast dinner.

He reached for her, pulling her into a kiss that made his intentions perfectly clear. Despite herself, Alice couldn't help her body from curving into his embrace, her mouth from opening under his.

"I hate that you've done this to me." He dragged his lips from hers and began kissing and nibbling her neck, his hands roaming over her torso.

"Done what?" she asked, already breathless.

He didn't answer and Alice immediately forgave him for making her feel like a piece of meat. "Oh, I . . . ahhh." Whatever she was going to say was lost as he sucked hard on her collarbone and a strong hand grabbed her ass, pulling her against him so she was left in no doubt as to the state of his arousal. She wondered absently how he'd managed to ride a motorbike in that condition.

"Wait!" Alice pulled back. "Let me take the chicken out of the oven so it doesn't burn." She quickly attended to the food, switched off the heat, and turned back to him. "Can we take this into a room with fewer hard surfaces?"

"Yeah, whatever." He hobbled out of the kitchen, momentarily prevented from undressing further because of having one hand on his cane. Alice followed him into the bedroom, reaching out to pinch his ass as they got near the bed.

"Ouch! Watch it wench, or I'll have you over my knee."

"Promises, promises," Alice leered. She'd never really understood the spanking thing, but figured if there was anyone she'd trust to give it a try, it would be him.

"Oh really?" He gave her a suggestive wink. "I'll remember that."

He worked on getting himself undressed again and gestured that she should do the same. They fell onto the bed, kissing passionately, and Alice could feel his hardness pressing into her thigh. His hands kneaded her breasts roughly, and he was thrusting against her skin, seeming desperate for contact.

Suddenly he stopped. "Alice?"

"Yes? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just, I . . . do you think I'm a good lover?"

"What?" Alice was astonished by the change of pace. "Of course. You're amazing, one of the best. You're so generous, so attentive." She wondered what he was expecting her to say.

He shrugged off the praise. "Okay. So, would it be okay if right now I wasn't? Because I just want to fuck you hard. We did it almost every day for three weeks and we haven't done it for over a week – not counting that blow job. I feel like my balls are going to explode."

Alice had never before felt the strange mix of lust and laughter that consumed her at his confession. She held back her laughter and allowed the lust to prevail.

"Say that again, only whisper it in my ear," Alice said quietly.

"Which bit?"

"_I want to fuck you hard_," she whispered.

"Oh God." He groaned, lowered his head and sucked on her earlobe for a moment before whispering, his breath hot and loud in her ear, "I want to fuck you hard."

Alice moaned in response. "I want that too. I wanted you from the minute I heard your voice on the phone. How do you want me?"

"Flip over."

Alice turned on to her stomach and at his encouragement raised herself on her hands and knees. True to his word, he wasted no time, positioning himself and pushing inside her forcefully.

"You're so wet already."

"I told you I wanted you."

"So hot . . . and tight . . . and wet." His words were punctuated by thrusts and he was moving so violently that Alice couldn't help herself from grunting each time he rammed home inside her. She lowered herself to her elbows and put her forehead down on her arms to brace herself, her ass riding high, pushing back to meet his thrusts. It felt amazing, but this time without either of them touching her clit, Alice knew she wouldn't come. Still, she wasn't complaining.

"God, Alice, I . . . " he groaned.

Alice understood that her name wasn't particularly sexy but she loved that he said it, that he let her know she was the one who was doing this to him.

He sped up and she could _hear_ how wet she was, feel his balls connecting with her labia when he buried himself deep inside her. His panting was more frantic and his groans were becoming more uncontrolled when suddenly he moaned, loud and long, and Alice could feel his hot discharge flooding into her. His cock twitched inside her, a tickly, intimate feeling like no other.

Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, as if he'd somehow ejaculated his life force along with his semen, he pulled out and fell on the bed next to her. He held his breath just long enough for Alice to be concerned, before letting out a heartfelt sigh. She collapsed next to him.

Then, unexpectedly, he began to chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Alice asked.

"This beats the hell out of watching a colonoscopy."

"_What?_"

"Never mind." He took a deep breath and turned on his side. "You enjoy your foreplay?" he asked with a sexily raised eyebrow.

"That was my foreplay?"

"Yeah." His hand wandered down her body, delving between her legs. "Ready for the main course?"

"Yes please." Alice caught a breath as she spoke, his fingers brushing over her now exquisitely sensitive clit.

"The foreplay worked. You're all swollen."

"Uh-huh." Alice was beyond speaking and only moments from what felt like was going to be one of the best orgasms she'd ever had, if only because it was so fast and unexpected.

He dipped a finger inside her, stroking her inside before returning his attention to her clit. "Yep, you definitely got five days' worth."

Alice gave him a weak slap on the arm. "Shut up with the gross commentary and concentrate on what you're doing."

"Yes ma'am."

She spread her legs a little further and closed her eyes, concentrating on the pleasure his touch provoked. He leant in and nuzzled her neck before kissing down to her breast. He took the perky tip into his mouth and suckled deeply just as he increased the pressure of his hand.

"Oh Greg, I'm so glad you . . . came home . . . from work. Ah!"

Alice felt as if her whole body convulsed as the orgasm crashed through her, the peak going on and on. She was wholly suffused with pleasure until her left foot seized in an agonising cramp.

"Ow, ow, ow! Stop!"

"What?" House pulled his hand away immediately and Alice curled up, clutching her foot.

"My foot cramped." Alice rubbed her foot and tried to stretch out the spasmed muscle.

House gave a dry laugh. "Heh, heh, I've never made anyone's foot orgasm before."

"Sorry," Alice apologised once the pain had subsided. "That was toe-curlingly good, obviously."

"Mmm. Come here."

Alice obeyed, snuggling into his arms.

"I hate the whole post-sex cuddling thing," House said.

"Really?" Alice raised an eyebrow. She'd noticed that unlike other guys she'd slept with, he was particularly fond of holding her after they made love. They always pulled apart before going to sleep, each needing their own space in the bed to sleep properly, but he always made a point of touching her immediately afterward, as if reassuring himself that she was real.

"Yes. And if you tell anyone different I may have to kill you."

"Ri-i-ght."

Alice remembered that he was only home for as long as it took his team to conduct their tests and wished that instead they had the whole evening, the whole weekend, to get lost in each other. Both of them forgetting their work for a while.

"Are you hungry? Do you want to eat before you head back in?"

He sighed and Alice wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

"Yeah, I guess. Not sure when I'll get another break, and your food beats chips from the vending machine."

"How long have we been in here? Do you think the chicken will be okay? It's probably sitting on the counter right at the perfect temperature to grow a crop of salmonella. I hope we don't get food poisoning."

House looked at her intently, but Alice could tell he wasn't really _seeing_ her. She could practically hear the grind of the wheels as they turned in his mind. Suddenly he grabbed her cheeks in both hands and gave her a loud, smacking kiss.

"That's it! I love you!" He jumped out of bed and began pulling on his jeans, muttering under his breath. "_We just haven't seen the rash yet._"

"What rash?"

"Typhoid. My patient has typhoid. _Salmonella typhi_. I have to go to the hospital and run a test, but I'll be back. The chicken will be fine. Save me some. Then we'll spend the whole weekend doing this again, only better." He finished dressing and then bent down to kiss her briefly again.

Alice was left reeling as he dashed out of the room, moving incredibly quickly for someone who didn't have full use of both legs. Alice shook her head and lay back in the bed, stretching out and feeling the slight, achy but oh-so-enjoyable soreness he'd created.

Then she froze.

_Had he just said 'I love you'?_

* * *

--

House returned home, feeling so triumphant he half-expected a chorus to proclaim his entrance as he walked in the door. The patient did have typhoid, thanks to a sneaky trip to Egypt with his twenty-three-year-old mistress who wanted to see the pyramids. He'd insisted that he hadn't left the state, let alone the country, but then his wife had been by his bedside the whole time. The wife was still in blissful ignorance; his team had made up some lie in the face of the patient's pleading. Lucky bastard. Lucky that House had been horny and that he had a woman who'd cooked him dinner that night.

It was ironic: _Egypt_.They'd been only half-serious when they'd talked about it, but maybe he really should take Alice there. Avoiding the typhoid, of course.

He filed that away to think about later and walked in to find Alice curled up on the couch watching a soppy movie. He didn't interrupt; instead headed to the kitchen, reheated the food she'd made him, then returned to the living room and stretched out on the sofa, not touching her but within arm's reach.

The movie was _Love Actually._ House had seen it before and hadn't particularly enjoyed it, but he was too happy with life to object. He settled in and noted it was up to the scene where Emma Thompson receives a Christmas gift from her husband that lets her know he's having an affair. Alice sniffed loudly and House could tell she was crying.

"You're crying? Over a movie?"

"Shut up," Alice answered defensively, wiping her eyes.

"You cry a lot."

"Yes, I do. I cry a lot, I get angry a lot, and for a while there I was hitting people a lot. Be thankful I seem to have grown out of that."

House nodded and finished his meal. He noticed that Alice had a habit of sighing each time Colin Firth was on screen.

"You like that guy?"

"Hmm."

Carefully non-committal, was House's interpretation. But it made him realise he didn't know who her favourite movie stars were, what her all-time favourite movie was, who her first boyfriend had been. Lots of important information that made Alice the woman she was, was still unknown to him. He decided to begin rectifying that.

"Who was your first crush?"

"What?"

"It's a question. As a journalist I would think you would be familiar with them. Who was your first crush?"

"What celebrity? Or real life?"

"Both."

He could see Alice was torn between watching the movie and talking to him. She must have decided in his favour, because after a moment she shifted to face him. "Okay. Well, I was totally in love with the lead singer of Duran Duran as a teen."

"No." House was appalled.

"Yes. But before that, if I think back to the _real first_, I guess it was Han Solo."

"Better."

"I also had a crush on Princess Diana. Not sexual, obviously, but just how glamorous she was. I had a scrap book of pictures of her that I cut out of magazines. And I was obsessed by Ritchie Rich comics for a couple of years, I just felt so sorry for the _poor little rich boy_ – I guess you'd call that a crush. Oh, and David Cassidy. But everyone loved David Cassidy."

House shook his head. If he'd though the questions would make Alice easier to understand, he was rapidly realising he'd been wrong.

"First real person crush?"

"Ah." Alice paused and a funny look crossed her face. House would have classified it as _melancholy_.

"Don't tell me some third-grader stole your heart."

"No. This sounds weird and wrong at first, but let me finish before you jump in with paedophile jokes."

She sounded so serious House decided to bite his tongue and nodded to let her know she should continue.

"It was my uncle, Uncle Ian. He was much younger than my dad and I didn't see him very often. When I was eight, he was in his early twenties and he was a journalist, an overseas correspondent. He seemed so intelligent, so heroic. My father used to tell me that Uncle Ian would go to foreign counties and report on bad people so they would have to stop hurting good people. I had this twisted idea of Ian as kind of like Clark Kent if Clark Kent had admitted he was actually Superman."

"That why you became a journalist?"

"Yeah, I guess so. When he was away I would write Uncle Ian letters telling him what was going on in our neighbourhood, like I was a reporter. '_And in other news, Mrs Williams from number forty-three has bought a new cat_.'"

She laughed, a little sadly, and House couldn't help reaching over and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She blushed when he did it and looked away.

"I bet he loved reading them."

"I guess so. I hope so."

"And where is he now? Are you competing for Pulitzer Prizes?"

"No, he died. He was shot in South Africa in 1982. We never found out exactly what happened or why he was killed."

Alice was staring off into the distance and House was half-regretting starting the conversation. But still, it helped him to understand some of the reason she was so passionate about her job. He could tell that in some little way she also saw herself as a righter of wrongs, a superhero with words as her weapon.

"What about you?"

"What?" He'd lost track of the conversation while trying to work out the puzzle that was Alice McKenzie.

"First crush."

"Ah. I think it was Raquel Welsh. At least, I remember that I was watching her on TV the first time I ever felt . . . you know, something _stir_ in response."

Alice gave him a grossed-out look.

"Hey, don't act all coy. You didn't seem to mind my _stirring_ earlier. You should be grateful to Raquel."

"I guess. If you put it that way. What about real world?"

"Real crush? It would have been Miyu. My dad was stationed in Japan for about a year and her family lived next door to us. She would have been, I don't know, about sixteen? I was seven or eight and I followed her around. She was always really kind to me; she treated me like I was a pet."

"A pet?" Alice said disbelievingly.

"No, I just mean, like a doll or something. She used to brush my hair and . . . " House fell quiet. He suddenly realised that he'd shared more than enough. Besides the purpose of the conversation had been to find out more about Alice, not to talk about himself.

"So why did you decide to go into medicine?" Alice asked, breaking the silence. "And why infectious diseases? I mean, _yuck_."

No way was House going there tonight. Not when he had a gorgeous woman at his disposal, a contentedly full belly, and enough of a high from his accurate diagnosis that he was fairly sure he'd be up for another round of bedroom athletics any moment now.

"So I could learn all about anatomy and cause women fall into my arms in ecstasy. Oh and earn pots of cash."

"Yeah, yeah." Alice rolled her eyes.

"What, you don't think that's true? I haven't proven myself yet?"

"You're very . . . competent." Alice said. He could see she was teasing.

"You said I was one of the best earlier."

"Did I?"

He suddenly had a thought. Another jigsaw piece of Alice he wanted to know. "One of the best of how many?"

"What? Do you seriously want to know that?"

"Yeah. Insatiable curiosity. It's one of the things you'll grow to love about me."

Alice frowned; he could see she was considering whether or not to tell him the truth. "Recently, not that many. I was faithful to my ex-husband – not that the asshole deserved that or returned the favour. Since him there's only been two including you."

"How long were you with Stuart?"

"Ten years, six of them married."

"And before Stuart?"

"Let's just say that I wasn't one of the _good girls_."

"Really? Like pole dancing and heroin and orgies?"

Alice laughed. "Not quite. But I got around. Enough to know what I'm doing and to know that if I died tomorrow I've had enough sex in my life."

"How can you possibly have enough sex?"

"No, I mean, I want more. But just, I'm happy with my past."

"You want more? Like now?" House grabbed Alice's arm and pulled, trying to get her to come over to his side of the sofa. He was too comfortable to move himself and for once his leg wasn't hurting too much.

Alice smiled. "Sure. But not before you answer me. Just because you ask, you don't get out of answering the question."

"What, how many?"

"Yes."

House wrinkled his nose, wondering what to say. His family had only stopped moving around when he was in his final two years of high school, so he could concentrate on his studies. But that was far too late to break into any of the cliques that the kids had already cemented in the years before he arrived. At college, he was nerdy, determined and – even then – known for being opinionated and prickly. A girl he was tutoring must have taken pity on him and, with a great sense of relief, he'd lost his virginity in his final year of pre-med. After that there'd been a date every now and then, and other med students and junior doctors who needed a release and had the same ridiculous schedule. But Stacy had been the one who'd really taught him everything he knew. He doubted Alice would want to hear that she owed his ex-girlfriend a debt of thanks.

"I was a nerdy kid and a conscientious med student. Didn't leave much room for fun. But I wasn't exactly a good boy either. Then there was Stacy and after that, well, my leg doesn't exactly invite female attention."

"That's pretty vague."

"You didn't give me a specific number, so I reserve the right not to either."

Alice curled her feet up under her and then crawled over the sofa cushions until she was almost in his lap, her breasts pressed against his chest. She kissed his cheek, his jaw and then his neck.

"You remember when we did it in the dining room?" she asked him, pulling aside the neck of his shirt so she could nibble along his collarbone.

"Yes." _Oh boy did he_. Alice had been spread out over the table like a feast, and like the Mad Hatter at a tea party, he'd made sure to take his share. He might not have had crumbs and butter in his pocket-watch, but together they'd made tea-time last, if not forever, then for a _very_ long time.

"Yeah, well then, you did this thing, with your mouth."

"Uh-huh." He thought he knew what she meant, but her hand had dropped to his pants and he was finding it a little hard to concentrate.

"Can you do it again?"

"Now?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

* * *

--

House disappeared back to his place late on Sunday morning, promising to return for dinner, and Alice was happy to have the place to herself for a few hours. She headed into her office to do some writing – some non-work writing. For a few years now Alice had been writing a little fiction. She considered it the writing equivalent of doodling, but she harboured secret desires of one day writing the great American novel.

A few hours had passed without her noticing – as they often did when she was writing – when she heard the sound of rattling and drawers opening in her bedroom. Curious, she got up from her desk, and the sight that hit her when she walked into the bedroom made her gasp.

House was standing in front of her dresser, bent over, several pairs of her panties clutched in one hand. Most of the dresser drawers were open and underwear was spilling out everywhere. He looked up, saw her in the doorway and froze. The look on his face was so incredibly guilty that Alice couldn't help the thoughts that crossed her mind.

_She'd known him a month. It wasn't very long. But it was probably long enough if he was about to confess a thing for wearing women's underwear. Or no, perhaps he was one of those even creepier guys who liked to smell underwear. Or God! What if he'd been working on her so that he could kidnap her, lock her in a basement and do unspeakable things to her while dressing a mannequin in her underwear and compelling her to apply body lotion? _

Alice told herself to calm down and made a mental note to stop watching _Criminal Minds_.

Finally he broke the stillness, dropping the panties in his hand into the open drawer and reaching down to a duffle bag Alice belatedly noticed at his feet.

"It's not like you need _all_ these drawers," he said accusingly, as if he was scolding her: _How dare you store your clothes in your own home!_

He scooped up some boxer shorts, t-shirts and socks from the duffle bag and haphazardly threw them into the drawers he'd emptied.

"Uh . . . " Alice began, then stopped. With no idea of what to say, she simply turned on her heel and walked back to her office, leaving him to it.

Later that night, Alice cringed as she heard the opening bars of _Stairway to Heaven_ played on an electric guitar coming from the studio. _Bastard had done that on purpose. _

House had moved in, and that was that.


	14. Chapter 14

On Monday Alice organised a meeting with the paper's legal advisor to discuss the finer points of medical malpractice and then went to meet Sue again afterwards to discuss his advice. Earlier in the morning, Simon the cancer guy had left a message on her cell phone to organise a time for their interview. He sounded even sicker than he had last week.

The women sat in the conference room, the not-insignificant pile of papers Alice had compiled as part of her research between them.

"Okay, so first things first, did Simon tell you he was suing Doctor Wilson for malpractice?" Alice asked.

"Yeah. He seemed to know a lot about the legal side of things."

"So what exactly did he tell you?"

Sue grabbed a notebook. "He's suing for malpractice, punitive damages of three-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars, and last time we spoke he was talking to his lawyer about suing the hospital for vicarious liability."

Alice could see the dollar signs that would have been racking up in the attorney's eyes at that. "And does he have anything else wrong with him? When I spoke to him last week he sounded really sick. "

"Not that I know of," Sue said. "The poor guy just had chemo for no reason. Isn't that enough?"

"I guess." Alice could tell that Sue thought she was a heartless bitch. But Alice was still unsettled by something and it was partly that Simon seemed to be too sick for someone who'd done one round of chemo at least two months ago. Her research – and even Dr Wilson's careful advice – indicated that even if he'd been badly affected by it, he should be getting better now, not worse.

"Did he tell you how he was diagnosed with cancer? Was he referred to Doctor Wilson by his normal doctor?"

"No, I think he went into the free clinic at Princeton Plainsboro with a cough. He lucked out and got Doctor Wilson in the clinic."

Alice nodded, she knew now that Princeton Plainsboro had a policy of ensuring all their doctors did regular rotations in the clinic – and not just because House complained about it bitterly. After all that's how her cut arm had ended up being stitched by the head of diagnostics.

Alice sent up a silent thanks to whoever had come up with that particular plan.

"Okay, well, thanks Sue. If I think of anything else, I'll give you a yell."

She sat for a while in the conference room, trying to work out why this story was giving her such trouble. Certainly, a large part of it was the fact that she was lying to House. As far as he knew, she'd turned it down weeks ago. Then there was something about this Simon guy that just wasn't right. She'd thought so when she'd observed him in his interview with Sue. But the poor guy was sick, no doubting that.

Her phone rang, telling her automatically that it was her _Sexy Thing_ on the other end of the line. She smiled.

"Hi sexy."

"Hi yourself. I'm going out with Wilson tonight."

"Okay." That was fine with her. Being back at work had reminded Alice exactly how awful things were going to be if – _when_ – he found out she was still doing this story. And apart from that, she wouldn't mind an evening with the Xbox to herself.

"So I won't be home for dinner."

"Okay."

"And I might be a bit late home."

"Okay."

He paused. "Okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

"You mean you won't, like, miss me?"

He was _so_ teasing her. Greg House was not the clingy type and she figured calling to say he wasn't going to be home was something he felt he should do, but something he kind of didn't want to do, all at the same time. It was nice that he had, and nice to be teased. Alice laughed. "Nup. Not even for a second. And while you're out I'm gonna beat your top score on Duke."

He laughed in reply and hung up the call.

Alice took a deep breath and told herself to get on with it. She dialled Simon Ferguson's number and organised to meet him at his place at two o'clock that afternoon.

* * *

--

Simon Ferguson lived in a modest, but by no means poor, neighbourhood. His house was cleaner, brighter and altogether far nicer than Alice was expecting. She figured it was because he seemed so wan and sickly, she'd expected a home that reflected him.

Alice deliberately arrived fifteen minutes early, a test to see if he was unsettled by it. It might mean he felt he needed time to prepare or hide something from her. But if he was concerned by her early arrival it didn't show, and he politely invited her in to his living room and offered her coffee.

"Thanks, that'd be lovely." She needed a hit of caffeine _and_ it gave her a brief time to snoop around the room while he was in the kitchen. Keeping a careful ear out for the noises of coffee preparation, Alice took in as much of the room as she could manage.

It was nicely decorated, but impersonal, and had the feel of a hotel room or display home. There was one framed photo, a fairly standard, mall-photographer portrait of a husband, wife and daughter, but Simon returned to the living room before Alice could check it out closely.

"I appreciate you coming here," he said, his voice still as shaky as it had been over the phone. He seemed to find it hard to draw a deep breath, and it gave his voice a hollow, wispy quality.

"That's fine Simon. How are you feeling?" Alice took the coffee he offered and sat down in the lounge chair opposite where he'd sat. She belatedly noticed a pile of papers on the floor next to his chair and wished she'd been able to look through them while he was gone.

"Still recovering from the chemo. Still wishing I'd taken a dose of Benadryl and never gone to that clinic."

"You do have a nasty cough," Alice observed. He hadn't coughed since she'd been there, but she'd heard it on the phone and it was – for want of a better word – _gross_.

"Ah, that's the irony," he said, giving her a smile that sent a chill down Alice's spine. "The chemo weakened my immune system and I've been getting every bug around. So I don't have lung cancer, but I've got bronchitis."

"And are you seeing a doctor? I mean surely Princeton Plainsboro is doing everything they can to make sure you're looked after?"

"I'm not going back to that place ever again," he said, as vehemently as his limited breath could manage. It seemed to sap his strength and he took a sip of coffee and sat back in the chair to rest for a moment.

Alice gave him a brief respite.

"Is this your wife?" she asked, pointing at the photo.

"It was."

"Was?"

"Ex-wife," he said bitterly.

Hmmm, Alice's spidey senses were tingling again. Something was definitely weird, if only she could work out _what_. She pulled on Alice-superhero-reporter-disguise number one: best friend and confidant.

"Oh, divorces are so painful, aren't they? I mean for everyone involved." Alice gave him a sympathetic smile. She knew that to gain trust, often you needed to reveal a little of yourself. "I split up with my husband almost two years ago and it was one of the most difficult experiences of my life." She put down her coffee mug and leant forward, her face and body posture as open as she could make them. On reflection, Alice realised it was exactly the same pose as that therapist had used on _her_, way back, before Alice had punched her and gone to the hospital and had her life turned around by a blue-eyed, grumpy misanthrope. In that way, she and Simon had something in common: both their lives had been utterly transformed by doctors.

"Did you have kids together?" he asked.

"No, thankfully. You have a daughter?" Alice guessed from the photo.

"Yeah, she lives with her mother."

"Oh that's hard. Especially with you being so sick. She must come and visit you a lot."

"From Florida? I don't think so."

"Oh." Alice watched as Simon frowned and then looked down to study his coffee intently. She thought it seemed like he was regretting letting out that bit of information. Alice made a mental note of it.

"But I guess she misses you. They must have both been worried when you thought it was cancer."

"I guess." He shrugged. Alice took the opportunity of him looking down to peer at him closely. His light-brown hair was thinning, but she guessed that might be a result of the chemo. He was pale and seemed aged somehow, although his face wasn't particularly lined. He was sweaty and, despite his pallor, there were two bright pink blotches on his cheeks. Already slim, Alice thought he'd lost weight since she'd seen him last, his clothes definitely seemed too big. The photo was too far away for her to properly compare his weight in it to now.

Alice decided to pull out one of the oldest tricks in the book.

"Simon, can I use your bathroom? Sorry, it's just I came straight from the office and I've been so busy today." She gave him her best smile.

"Sure. Let me show you where it is." He rose and led her down a hallway and gestured to a door.

Alice closed the door with a smile which quickly faded as she looked around. It was a tiny powder room, nothing more than a toilet and basin. No cabinet to check for medications. The main bathroom must be back further in the house. _Damn._

Alice peed and washed her hands, deciding that this had been a waste of time. She didn't really need any more information from Simon to write the story. She just had to admit that she was procrastinating, trying to find some way to get out of writing the story, to get out of ruining the lovely Doctor Wilson's reputation and having to admit her lie to House. She was clutching at straws and the straws were rapidly running out.

She dried her hands on the little pink-embroidered hand-towel and her eyes glanced past the trashcan in the corner as she did. Something in it caught her eye. The trash was empty except for a single, crumpled, blood-stained tissue. It was reasonably fresh, and it didn't look the way a tissue would look if it had been pressed against a wound or a cut. Alice wished that House was with her. From what she knew of him – and what she'd read on the internet – he'd know what was wrong with this guy in seconds. Would know if he was really sick or faking it. Would know what it meant for the cancer misdiagnosis.

With a sigh, Alice put on her smile again and headed back out to the living room.

She could hear Simon in the kitchen, washing up their coffee mugs and Alice quickly raced over to his chair. The papers that had been in plain sight earlier had been moved. Peeking out from under the chair Alice saw a corner of a white business card and she grabbed it with her toe. As it appeared she read _Collins and Lukowzski, Attorneys at Law_ and an address. In Florida. Before she could see a name on the card, she heard Simon returning from the kitchen and hurriedly went back to her seat.

Alice asked him a couple more standard questions, taking notes of his answers, but all the while her brain was working. Lawyers in Florida? Might mean absolutely nothing – they might have been his divorce lawyers. Hell, Simon might be a paralegal or something – it reminded her that she didn't know what he did for a living.

"And Simon, are you working right now? What do you do?"

"I've been too sick to work recently and got laid off. Before that I was in sales. Car parts."

Alice nodded. "Well thanks, I think that's about it for now." She got up and he rose with her. She could see it was a struggle and that just their short conversation had tired him out. As they walked to the door, he began to cough. It was as awful to watch as it was to listen to – coughing obviously caused him tremendous pain, and he grimaced with the effort.

Alice felt a stab of pity for him for the first time. The poor guy _was_ sick. Most probably because a doctor had made a mistake about what was wrong with him and had prescribed the wrong treatment. It was just the sort of story superhero-reporter Alice loved. Simon was the good guy, the underdog, so why was she trying so hard to prove that he wasn't?

Alice reached an arm around him to help when a particularly vicious cough struck.

"Simon? Are you sure you're okay?"

He leaned against her for a moment, then straightened up. If she hadn't been so close, Alice would have missed seeing it, but there were tiny droplets of what looked like blood on his lips.

"I'm fine," he said, pushing her away and out the door.

"I don't know . . . are you sure you don't want me to call a doctor or something?"

"I'm fine." He gave her what she figured was supposed to be a reassuring smile. "My friend is coming over in an hour and then I'll take a nap. I'm sure I'll be better tomorrow."

Alice nodded reluctantly and went back to her car. At least he has a friend coming over to be with him, she thought.

* * *

--

That night Alice woke up when House lurched against the doorframe of the bedroom, his cane hitting the timber with a loud bang. He staggered across the room, limping worse than normal, weaving over to the bed.

"Alice?" he whispered, loud enough for most of the neighbours to hear.

"Yes Greg, I'm awake." Alice sat up a little and blinked at him. He was standing next to her, swaying back-and-forth slightly.

"Alice? Alice?" He poked at her leg with his cane.

"Yes, Greg?" Alice repeated, feeling like a grade-school teacher addressing a naughty seven-year-old.

"You're bew-di-ful."

"Thanks."

"No, really. You are. You really, really, really are."

"That's very nice of you to say, Greg."

"Can we have sex?"

"God, aren't you raw from the weekend?" _Apart from which there was no way you'll be getting it up in your current state_, she added silently_._

"Heh heh heh." He laughed, a silly, dorky noise, like a nerd who'd been told a dirty joke.

"Looks to me like you need to sleep."

"No-o-o-o, Alice," he pleaded. "I wanna . . . 'cause you're so bew-di-ful . . . and you're in bed."

"I tell you what," Alice reasoned, "you go in the bathroom and brush your teeth and drink a big glass of water. Then come back here and get undressed and get into bed. If you do all that, I'll do anything you can stay awake long enough to do."

His eyes lit up in the way only a drunk person's can. "I'll be right back."

Alice heard him noisily making his way in the bathroom and wished she'd added "shower" to her list of demands, because although he'd left the room, the bourbon smell he'd left behind was enough to be intoxicating in itself.

Eventually he returned to bed, crossing over to his side and falling onto it clumsily. Alice had pulled the covers back in preparation of just such an eventuality and she reached over and pulled his long legs under the comforter. He made a messy grab for her as she did and Alice let him drag her into his arms.

"How was Wilson?" Alice asked, resting her head into the crook of his shoulder. Despite his drunkenness it was still nice to curl up with him.

"Drunker than me," House declared.

"_I find that hard to believe,"_ Alice muttered under her breath. "No, I meant did you guys have a good time?"

"Yeah, kinda. He's pretty bummed."

_Bummed_? Alice smiled. An intoxicated Greg House had the vocabulary of a sixteen-year-old. Amusing.

"This guy's suing him. He's gonna settle. Guy's lawyer's playin' hard ball and Wilson doesn't wanna court case. Bad for your rep, ya know. Cuddy's gonna give it up too." He paused to burp. "Doesn't take much for Cuddy to give it up." He did his dorky, sleazy laugh again. "Better to let one guy win and shut him up."

_Damn it_. There, amongst the innuendo, was her inside info. The reason Mad-Eye had given her the story in the first place.

He bent his head to kiss her neck, noticeably less skilful than usual, murmuring to her under his breath.

"What?"

"Alice? I love you, y'know, the way you smell."

Great, she was two-for-two now. Twice he'd said _I love you_, twice he hadn't meant it.

And now she had a bigger problem. If the hospital had decided to settle, that meant they'd probably make Simon sign a non-disclosure agreement. Once that happened, Alice's story, all those weeks of research, would be over. And so, most likely, would her career at the _Princeton Observer_ once Mad-Eye found out.

Her deadline had just been suddenly and irrevocably brought forward. The story had to be done tomorrow. And that meant that her relationship with House would most likely be over tomorrow too. Well, maybe the day after, once the paper hit the newsstands. Once he read the story he would know that Alice had gone behind his back, skewered his best friend and destroyed his medical reputation, and used her time with him to do it. Yeah, she could see him forgiving all that – _not_. Alice sighed and stared up at the ceiling, knowing it was going to take a long time for her to get back to sleep.

Against her neck, House snored.

* * *

--

During the night, unable to sleep, Alice had plotted her strategy. Of all the things bothering her about Simon Ferguson, the most significant was his continuing illness. It was a tricky legal area, but Alice remembered that the paper's legal eagle had made it clear that if Simon had some other disease, something that could be easily mistaken by a doctor for cancer, then he could no longer sue for malpractice without going to court to prove it.

Alice was sure that if she could prove that he was deliberately avoiding being properly diagnosed and treated in an attempt to boost his potential settlement, then that was something Wilson's attorney's could use. And instead of writing a story about doctors' malpractice, Alice could show how malicious and frivolous legal action was contributing to the rising cost of healthcare. The research she'd done worked for both angles.

Perhaps, in doing so, she might just possibly, maybe, salvage her relationship with House.

If only she could prove that Simon Ferguson was sick. Sick with something other than bronchitis that he'd caught after being wrongly given chemo. Alice let out a big sigh.

_It was _such_ a long shot. _

House was still lying in bed nursing his hangover when Alice went in to say goodbye before heading to work. She brought him a coffee, a glass of water and a piece of toast.

"How's the head?" she asked sympathetically.

"Not good." He squinted up at her as she put the drinks and food on the nightstand next to him.

She perched on the edge of the bed, pausing for a moment to take in the sight of him there, in her bed, knowing it might well be for the last time. It could have been romantic if not for the fact that he smelt like a sweaty distillery and looked like death warmed up.

"Uh, Greg, I wanted to ask you something. A friend of mine, someone at work, I think they're coughing up blood."

"Are _you_ coughing up blood?" He looked alarmed.

"No, not me. A friend." Alice knew she sounded pathetic.

"Alice, years of experience tells me to be suspicious when people ask about medical problems that belong to 'a friend of mine'. 'A friend of mine's penis has turned green and dropped off, doctor, what could it be?'" he mocked cruelly. "Morons." He rubbed his head as if the mockery had taken more energy than he had to spare.

"So, what do you think?"

"What do I think? I think they'd better go see a doctor." He peered at her more closely. "You're not sick are you?"

"No, I'm fine."

"You're not pregnant?"

"What?" Alice was shocked. "Why would you ask that?"

"I thought you might be softening me up. You know, make me think you've got cancer or something and you go, 'Ha! Joke! It's not that bad, actually I'm just pregnant.'"

"No, I'm not pregnant. And if I was, I would never do something like that."

"Ah, you say that now."

"Greg, you must be the most cynical person on earth."

"Not quite yet. But I'm training hard."

Alice rolled her eyes. "I'm going to work."

"Have fun. I'm going back to sleep."

Alice got up and walked out and was standing at the door with her keys in her hand before realising that she hadn't said goodbye.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:** Sorry, short chapter, but it made sense to break the story this way. Thanks so much to all the lovely people reading and reviewing!

* * *

--

The first thing Alice did when she got to work was look up law firms in Florida. Collins and Lukowzski were listed in Orlando and they had a website. Alice wasted no time typing in the address and was not surprised to find a fairly cheap and shoddy site pop up. Lawyers should really go out and meet some web geeks. Both groups of people needed friends, Alice thought. They might find they had complementary needs.

Collins and Lukowzski were small-time attorneys who seemed to specialise in that particularly nasty and grubby ambulance-chasing-style of law. "No fee unless you win settlement" was banner-advertised across the top of the site. The firm also offered pages of advice on what type of claims were likely to be successful and how to go about deciding if you had a claim worth pursuing. The site even offered a link to the Florida Office of Insurance regulation, where you could check a doctor's history of malpractice claims.

So, _not_ divorce lawyers.

But still, it wasn't exactly a smoking gun. Simon could easily have called for advice from a legal firm from his home town. His current attorneys were based in New Jersey, Alice knew, but then he'd probably had to hire someone local to complete the action because laws varied from state to state.

Without much hope, Alice placed a call to the Florida law firm, leaving a message with the receptionist and asking to speak to the lawyer who'd advised Simon Ferguson. She left her real name and said she was calling from the _Observer_ – she didn't know enough to fake an identity and figured that being from the media might actually help in dealing with this particular type of legal bottom-feeders.

Then she went to see the paper's lawyer again.

"Max, I need your help."

Max Summers was thankfully a fairly patient guy. He reminded Alice of her grandfather, thick, curly grey hair, kindly eyes but with a piercing stare. Apparently he'd once been an almost unbeatable defence attorney, but had taken on the advising role at the paper when he'd wanted to go into semi-retirement. He removed his glasses and gestured for Alice to sit down.

"Again?" he teased gently.

Alice realised this would be at least the fourth time she'd been in his office about this story. Normally reporters avoided Max like the plague, mainly because his contribution to stories was generally to cut out the good parts or to advise Mad-Eye against publishing them at all. But this time she needed his help.

Quickly she outlined what she'd discovered, including the law firm in Florida.

Max took in a deep breath and leant back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he thought. After a few moments he gave Alice a small sympathetic smile.

"Alice, it's still completely circumstantial. And if the New Jersey doctor and hospital are about to settle, then there's probably very little you can do. You're right, you'll lose the guy's story – the hospital would be crazy not to include a non-disclosure agreement. Although judges don't like them, Princeton Plainsboro has enough legal muscle to get one through.

"Your source – Simon – could easily have called his hometown attorneys for advice. But is it possible that he successfully pursued a case there? Yes. There are definitely people out there who try to make a living from suing doctors. Generally they have to move around a bit, because they get a reputation and doctors share that kind of information with each other. Then if they're really sick, they find it hard to get treated."

"Hmm." Alice's mind started to pull pieces together. "Could he sue two different doctors for the same thing?"

"What, for the same illness? I don't know." Max sat back and thought for a while. "I guess it's possible, if the same mistake was made twice. States aren't good at sharing that kind of information. And a lot of these cases are sealed afterwards to protect patient confidentiality and doctors' reputations. It can be tough to find out if something happened."

"Max, could you look into any sources you might have in Florida? Find out if Simon Ferguson ever sued any doctors there?"

He nodded. "Will do. And it might be worth putting in a call to the _Sentinel_ in Orlando – just in case it got any coverage."

"Yeah, that's a good idea, thanks Max."

"And what about that doctor you're sleeping with? Maybe he could make a call to a few colleagues down there? They're far more likely to tell him something than a reporter."

"What? Is my personal life on the bulletin board or something?" Alice said exasperatedly.

Max chuckled. "Ah, Alice. Actually, I think we're all just pleased to see you happy after such a long time. You deserve it."

"Oh." Alice still felt annoyed that her sex life seemed to be a topic of discussion in the office, but now she felt embarrassed by Max's gentle concern.

"Right," Max said, getting back to business. "So I'll see what I can dig up. You'll call the _Sentinel_, and you'll get your doctor to make a few calls too."

Alice grimaced. He was right, House would be an invaluable ally at this point. And if there was a chance of helping his friend, perhaps saving Wilson from this stain on his reputation, then maybe he'd see beyond Alice's betrayal. _Maybe. _

"I'll see what I can do," Alice said vaguely.

"Good. So we need to move quickly, yes?"

Alice nodded.

"Check back with me in a couple of hours."

"Okay."

Back at her desk, Alice made a call to the _Sentinel._ She'd asked around the newsroom to find out if anyone had a contact there, and luckily Phillip, who sat near her, had gone to college with someone who worked in the features area. It was a pretty flimsy connection, but it had to be enough.

She called and asked to be put through to Jo Leigh. The two reporters had talked at length and Jo had been as helpful as Alice could have wished for. Unfortunately she had nothing. The paper hadn't done any coverage of medical malpractice stories for at least a year, and Jo had gone into the paper's database to check further back with no luck.

Alice sat back in her chair and played with her Rubik's cube. Just as she noticed that by complete fluke she'd managed to get three green pieces in a row, a new option suddenly occurred to her. _She didn't have to do the story!_

Give up the research. Let Simon Ferguson win his settlement and never think about him again. Tell Mad-Eye she'd lost the main source of her article and that it was pointless now. Refuse to cooperate if he made her complete the story anyway. Accept that she'd have to find a new job if he fired her, as he had threatened he would. Maybe she could take some time out to work on her novel – it wasn't like money was a problem. House would never know. She could write, cook dinner, and be there every night when he got home; martini in hand for him after his hard day.

The idea was appealing for about a minute.

Then superhero-reporter-Alice reasserted herself. She knew it was an old-fashioned way of looking at things, but Alice got into journalism so that the bad guys wouldn't always win. Right now she didn't know if it was Dr Wilson or Simon Ferguson who was the good guy. But for their sakes' she couldn't prioritise her sex life over their right to whatever justice was in her power to bring them. _But it's not just your sex life_, a little voice inside her prompted. _It's your love life. Love. The thing you thought you'd never have again. A chance at the life you thought Stuart had stolen forever._

Alice swallowed hard and pushed the thoughts away. She picked up her phone and dialled.

"Is this important? I'm busy." House's gruff tone almost put her off. Almost but not quite.

"Yes, it's really important. Can I come see you in your office?"

"Christ, you _are_ sick, aren't you?"

"No, not me. But we might be able to save someone's life or someone's reputation. Or both. I'm not sure which, but I need your help."

He paused, and Alice thought for a moment he was going to demand more information from her.

"Okay. See you soon." He ended the call and Alice swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of cold, bitter coffee that had been sitting on her desk since earlier that morning. She grabbed a few of the more important pages of her research and stuffed them into her purse.

"Jimmy?" she called over the newsroom as she walked out. "Can you please tell Max that I'm out and to call me on my cell as soon as he has anything?"

"Sure Al. Have a great day!"

Alice snorted in an unladylike way as she left the room. _Yeah, right. _

_

* * *

_

--

Alice walked into House's office with a combined sense of foreboding and excitement which was confusing the hell out of her. It was the first time she'd been to his workplace and, she thought sadly, probably the last time too.

He had a glass-walled office that connected to a conference room with a large rectangular table, a small desk in the corner and tiny kitchenette. The rest of the space was filled with open metal shelves and Alice noticed that almost all the furniture, except for the chairs, was made of glass. It made for a very transparent space – just the sort of place for truth-telling.

House was alone in his office, staring at the computer intently, a pair of narrow spectacles perched on his nose that Alice had never seen him wear before.

"Greg?" she said quietly from the doorway, not wanting to startle him. Not wanting to start the conversation.

Without looking up, he motioned for her to come in and sit down. Alice walked in and sat down opposite him. For a moment she felt that bizarre sense of inferiority and insecurity that she often did when visiting a doctor. _It's my body, but you know more about it than I do._ The idea had always unsettled her.

He let her sit there for a while and if she hadn't known better she'd have guessed it was a power play – making her wait to let her know that his time was far more important than hers. She knew him well enough now to know that it was just that his attention was elsewhere, completely absorbed by something, and she just had to wait until his brain was ready for her.

He was just the same when he played Xbox. Or the guitar.

Finally, he turned to her, looking at her over his glasses. "Hi Alice. The world was ending or something?"

Alice cut to the chase. "I need you to call Cuddy and tell her to delay the settlement of Wilson's malpractice claim."

Alice wasn't quite sure what she expected, but he simply narrowed his eyes, picked up the phone on his desk and dialled.

"Cuddy. Hold off the lawyers on Wilson's suit."

Alice couldn't make out the voice on the other end.

"Because I said so." He sighed. "Because I might have something that makes a difference. Yes . . . I don't know, a day?" He looked at Alice questioningly and she nodded. "A day. That's easy, just say you're in meetings and won't get to the paperwork until tomorrow."

There was a little more banter back and forward, not all of it about the proceedings, until Alice was sure he'd achieved a delay. Then House hung up the call and sat back in his chair. The look he gave her sent chills down her spine.

"Now, Alice, care to tell me what the fuck is going on?"


	16. Chapter 16

Alice was about to launch into her explanation when her cell phone rang. She checked the number – it had a Florida prefix. If it was the attorney calling from Collins and Lukowzski she needed to take the call. She held up a hand to House and answered the phone, not missing the furious expression on his face at being made to wait.

"Alice McKenzie."

"Ms McKenzie, this is Frank Collins, returning your call."

"Thanks for calling me back, Mr Collins. I believe your firm might have represented Simon Ferguson in a medical malpractice claim in Florida and I'm just calling to see if you have any comment you could give me."

Alice made sure to meet House's eyes as she spoke, hoping her words would help him to understand what was going on. Sure enough, his fury slowly morphed into puzzlement and curiosity. The anger was still there though, Alice could see that.

She put the phone on loudspeaker so House could hear the lawyer's responses.

"I have no comment for you Ms McKenzie."

"But surely you can tell me just a little about how you successfully gained a large settlement for your client. I'm writing a story about medical mistakes and Mr Ferguson was very complimentary about your firm's services." It was a wild stab in the dark and Alice hoped it might be vaguely enough on target – and that Frank Collins might have a big enough ego – that he'd fall for it.

"Any settlement we did or did not gain for Mr Ferguson would be protected by attorney-client privilege, Ms McKenzie, you should know that."

_Bingo! _"Ah, so Mr Ferguson _was_ one of your clients," Alice asked. _God, this guy wasn't the smartest card in the deck. _

"Uh," the attorney faltered, knowing he'd been caught. "I didn't say that."

"Thank you for your time Mr Collins." Alice hung up before he could say anything further.

"So you're writing that medical malpractice story after you told me you wouldn't." House said, his voice carefully neutral.

"Yes, but Greg, let me explain."

"Why should I?"

"Because I think Wilson is being targeted by a conman and I think we can stop him. But I need your help to do it and we only have a few hours to work everything out. I have to have the story submitted by tonight's deadline so it's published before the hospital settles."

He still looked doubtful.

"I know, I betrayed your trust, and I've felt terrible about lying to you. But just give me a few hours. Let's see if we can solve this. Then we can sort out everything else." Alice gave him a pleading look, realising just how much she needed him to say yes. If he refused to help her, then she'd have lost everything – the story _and_ him.

"What do you need me to do? If – and it's a big _if_ – I decided to help?"

Alice was once again reminded of how much she'd put on the line. She _had_ to convince House to help. She took a deep breath and tried to hold herself a little straighter, just so she'd feel more confident. Holding his gaze steadily, she began.

"Okay. Simon Ferguson is the guy that's suing Wilson for malpractice. That lawyer practically gave away the fact that Ferguson has already successfully sued another doctor in another state. I think Simon Ferguson _knew_ that he didn't have cancer _before_ he saw Wilson. But I don't have proof, not enough for me to publish. I need evidence – preferably from the doctor that treated him. As well as having done this deliberately, I think Simon's exaggerating how sick the chemotherapy has made him to boost the settlement from Princeton Plainsboro. There's something strange going on: he's sick, really sick, but when I asked Wilson about that when we had dinner, he said he thought someone who'd had one round of chemo should be getting better by now."

House shook his head. "I _knew_ those questions were weird. I meant to ask you about them later," he muttered, seeming angry with himself for missing following up on it.

"I know, I know. But as I said, let's deal with you and me after this. For now, time's running out."

House took in a deep breath and let it out noisily. "Okay. Sick you say? Let's get to the bottom of that. Then we can work out where to start calling the 35,000 or so doctors practicing in Florida."

Alice didn't miss the sarcasm.

He picked up the phone and dialled a page. "We're gonna need help."

------------------------------------------------

Alice had heard a lot about House's team from House – most of it uncomplimentary. But under his barbed comments, Alice figured they must be pretty sharp: he wouldn't have hired them otherwise. Still, she was surprised by the motley assembly of three doctors who wandered into the conference room in answer to House's page. Thirteen was prettier than she'd imagined, but also a bit distant and haughty. Despite her attractiveness, Alice didn't feel the least sense of jealousy. Kutner had a warm smile and Alice felt he was probably the one whose company she'd enjoy the most. Taub she recognised by process of elimination; he was older than she'd expected.

"People, I have a diagnostic challenge for you."

The three sighed wearily and took places around the table where Alice had perched herself at one end.

"Who's she?" Taub asked bluntly.

"This is Alice," House announced before Alice could introduce herself.

"The _Touch Myself_ chick?" Kutner asked with a grin.

"Yes. And no one will be touching her today."

"You mentioned a challenge?" Thirteen asked irritably, cutting through the banter.

"We need to diagnose a patient that we can't see or talk to. All we have is a chart that's incorrect and second-hand information from a non-medical observer."

"What?" Taub asked. "Why can't we examine the patient? This will be impossible if we can't run tests."

"Just shut up with the complaints and let's get to work."

Alice wondered if he always spoke so sharply to his team. They didn't seem to flinch, so she supposed he did.

He stood next to a whiteboard, marker in hand. "Alice, tell us what you saw when you met this guy."

Alice realised how much depended on her giving the right information. She closed her eyes, trying to recall everything about Simon Ferguson, starting from the top of his head and working down.

"His hair was thinning. He had a sweaty face, pale skin, but pink cheeks – he was flushed. He had a cough, a phlegmy cough like a smoker, and seemed to find it hard to breathe. His hands shook. He'd lost weight, quite a lot, and I'd guess it happened suddenly, because his clothes didn't fit properly. He was a little unsteady on his feet. I think he was coughing blood, I saw little specks of it on his mouth and found a blood-stained tissue in his bathroom."

Alice opened her eyes and found that House had filled the whiteboard with words as she'd spoken. Some were medical terms she had never seen before, others made more sense: _fever, alopecia, tremors_.

House gave her a nod, as if he was proud of her careful recollection.

"On top of all this," House summarised, "whatever it is that he's got looked enough like cancer on an x-ray that an oncologist thought it was cancer. But it wasn't."

"Cancer but not cancer," Taub said. "Have we been here before?"

"Just think of it as _Groundhog Day_ without Bill Murray," House snapped back.

"He told me he had bronchitis," Alice said, remembering that and figuring that anything was important. "That he'd got it because the chemo had weakened his immune system. He said he was getting lots of bugs."

"That's a perfectly logical. If the bronchitis is bad enough, he could be coughing blood," Thirteen said confidently. Alice's heart sank a little.

"This guy had chemo, but didn't have cancer?" Taub asked.

"Yes. One cycle."

"If this guy had chemo that caused neutropenia then his doctors would have him in hospital if a bronchitis infection was that serious."

"What if he was deliberately avoiding being treated?" Alice asked.

"Then he's an idiot," Taub answered.

"I think we've already firmly established that," House said drily.

"No, wait," Kutner said, thinking aloud. "He had a disease that could be mistaken for cancer. And then the chemo weakened his immune system and made that disease worse . . . A disease that would cause all those symptoms: fever, sweats, cough, weight loss . . . "

"You're conveniently ignoring the six or so other symptoms on the board," Taub pointed out.

"No, but what if they're symptoms from the chemo? Separate to the disease?" Kutner countered.

House began circling some of the words he'd written on the board. "So the chemo accounts for _these_. And what's left is . . . "

"TB," Kutner announced triumphantly.

"But TB—" Thirteen began.

"But TB fits perfectly," House interrupted. "Lung shadows can be mistaken for cancerous growths. It fits all these symptoms. And with a weakened immune system caused by the chemo it would mutate into—"

"Miliary tuberculosis," Taub said. "You're right."

House turned to Alice. "How much time have you spent with this guy?"

Alice frowned. "Not long. A few hours maybe."

"Did he cough?"

"Yeah, I—"

"You were close enough to see the blood on his lips," House said with a sigh. He gave a look to Taub who jumped up from the table.

"On it." He quickly left the room.

"What?" Alice asked.

"You've just won yourself at least two month's worth of four different antibiotics until we get a proper test result to find out if you've got it too. And if you have, you can look forward to a year's worth of yummy pills."

"Right." House put the marker down and sat heavily in one of the chairs. "Next steps. We have to find this guy, put him in isolation and treat him, because the stupid bastard is probably going to die soon if we don't."

"Oh, God, really?" Alice knew Simon was sick, but she didn't think it was _that_ serious.

"Yeah, like I wouldn't advise he rent any new release DVDs. The late fees on those are a killer."

"Thirteen, Kutner, get the guy's address from Alice and go bring him in. Take some cops with you, because he might be a little cranky that we've ruined his evil genius plan."

Alice quickly scribbled down Simon Ferguson's address on a scrap of paper and handed it to Thirteen.

A moment later House and Alice were left alone.

"You know, even though I've been suspicious of him all along, I still find it hard to believe that someone would do this deliberately," Alice said.

"Alice, it's still not much. It doesn't prove any malicious intent. So the guy's got TB? And Wilson made a mistake? It doesn't change anything."

"I know, but . . . " Alice got up and paced around the room. "I'm sure there's something more to this. Florida." She turned to House and put her hands on her hips. "What if the same thing happened in Florida? A doctor mistook TB for cancer, he sued and won. So then Simon realises that he's got a potential gold mine in his lungs: a disease easily mistaken for cancer that could win him a lawsuit. So he refuses treatment and goes on the road, hoping to find another doctor to make the same mistake, someone he can sue again."

"TB is reportable," House said, building on her train of thought, "so he'd have to leave the state." He jumped up and headed into his office.

"What?" Alice quickly followed him.

"I'm going to look up the public health records in Florida. If we can find the doctor who listed him, we might have a lead."

Alice perched on the edge of the desk while House gained access to the database and searched the records. It took a long time, and he'd already gone back six months with no luck when Alice's cell phone rang again.

"Alice, it's Max."

"Hi Max, any luck with your legal connections in Florida?"

"Alice I'm—"

"ALICE MCKENZIE, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

House turned to stare, the voice was loud enough to be heard on the other side of the room, even through the tinny speaker in Alice's cell.

"My boss," she mouthed silently.

"Michael, I'm—"

"MAX SAYS YOU'RE WORKING A NEW ANGLE TO THIS STORY AND THAT YOU'RE ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR SOURCE TO A COURT ORDER. I SWEAR, ALICE, IF YOU DON'T HAVE THAT STORY ON MY DESK BY DEADLINE TONIGHT YOU ARE NOT EVEN COMING BACK TO CLEAN OUT YOUR DESK!"

"Sorry Alice, but I was following up the Florida lead and Mad-Eye came in—" Max began.

"It's okay Max." She knew Max was only covering his own ass. She would have done the same in his position.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?"

Alice couldn't help a nervous giggle. It had been bound to happen sometime and she just thanked God it hadn't been her. Max was smart enough to dig himself out of that hole.

"Did you find out anything Max?" she asked, trying to bring Mad-Eye's focus back to the story.

"Not really, Alice. Nothing that'll help you."

"Okay. I think I'm on to something here."

House tugged her hand and pointed at the screen. It was a boring database of names, dates of birth, addresses and diagnosis. And right there, where House's finger was pointing was _Simon Ferguson_. _Tuberculosis._

"Listen Mad-Eye," Alice said, thoughtlessly using his nickname, "I will definitely have a story for you by deadline tonight. It might not be the one you were expecting but it will be a fucking good one. You should know by now that I only do good ones. And if you don't shut up and let me get on with my job, it will be accompanied by my resignation letter."

"BEFORE deadline," Mad-Eye yelled. "I want to read it first and Max will need to read it. IF HE'S STILL EMPLOYED HERE, THAT IS."

The phone went dead and Alice closed the phone with a shiver. _Did she really need this in her life? Maybe that whole idea of taking some time out to work on her novel wasn't a bad one. After this was sorted out, of course. _

"So, he was definitely diagnosed with TB in Florida," Alice said, focussing back on the computer screen on House's desk.

"Yes." House clicked a few more links. "By a Doctor Auburn." He went into another database and called up Doctor Auburn's details, including a phone number. "Do you want to call?" he asked.

Alice was touched that he asked. Perhaps he understood what was compelling her to complete this story, the need she had to solve the puzzle, to right the wrong, outside of what her boss wanted from her.

She gave him a hopeful smile that he didn't return. "No, would you call? He's much more likely to tell you things than me."

Before House could answer, Taub returned with a brown paper bag. He handed it to Alice. She opened it and inside saw four vials of medications.

"Isoniazid, Rifadin, Myambutol and Pyrazinamide," Taub explained. "You'll need to take all four for the next two months. House can give you the instructions on dosages and all that."

"Thanks," Alice said, wondering if House would be around to do that. She guessed if he wasn't she'd have to make an appointment to go see her own doctor and get advice.

"I'm going back to check on our _other_ patient," Taub said testily before turning on his heel and leaving the office.

After Taub walked out, House stared at Alice. Sizing her up, like he was deciding what to do with her, as if she was a particularly nasty bit of trash. Then he looked away, back at his computer.

"Okay, I'll call this doctor," House said reluctantly. "But I can't promise I'm gonna tell you what he tells me. Seems to me that as long as I get Wilson off the hook, it's not really my problem whether I help the _Observer_ sell a few more papers tomorrow."

Alice shrugged. He was right. "I guess that's your decision," she said quietly. She stood up. "Can you tell me where Wilson's office is? I need to talk to him – let him know what's going on, see if I can get some quotes from him."

"You don't have to walk far – it's next door." House gestured with his chin.

"Okay. Well, I'll go talk to him while you try to get hold of Doctor Auburn. I'll meet you back here afterwards."

He gave her a curt nod and Alice wished with all her heart that he'd smile. Give her one of those encouraging smiles that she'd seen – only occasionally – that lit up his face and warmed her heart. She knew it was too much to expect. So she blinked hard, picked up her purse and headed to Wilson's office.


	17. Chapter 17

House leant back in his chair and rubbed his thumb against his forehead – an unconscious outward manifestation of mental stress. He sat for a moment, trying to take everything in. He recalled funny little questions Alice had asked – the "friend of hers" who was coughing up blood, particularly. She'd been using him for information, but not in an obvious way. He thought of all the things she could have possibly done to take advantage of having a doctor in her life. She could have stolen his keys and broken into his office and accessed the hospital database. Hell, he'd brought his laptop home a few times – she could have just jumped on that. His password – MadHatter – wouldn't have been hard for her to guess.

With a sigh, he realised she was right. For now, he had to concentrate on finding a way to exonerate Wilson. Then he could work out what all this meant for him and Alice – if there _was_ a him and Alice.

He picked up the phone and called Auburn, relived to find that he was in his office and available to take the call. At first the doctor was excited to hear from him and reminded House of the time they'd met at a nephrology conference in Washington five years ago. Of course, House had absolutely no memory of that at all.

Dr Auburn's enthusiasm had dimmed quite considerably when House mentioned Simon Ferguson.

"I'm treating Simon Ferguson for miliary TB," House explained. "I saw that you listed him on the public records in Florida."

"I listed him with pulmonary TB," Auburn explained. "He never came to any of his follow up appointments so I'm guessing he didn't take his medication and that's how he ended up in Princeton with miliary TB. His immune system would have to have been weakened for that to happen though."

"Yeah, chemo does that," House said drily

"What?"

"You didn't treat Ferguson for anything else?"

"House, I . . . can't say. Let's just say that the lawyers won that round." Auburn asked cautiously. "But if he's being treated there, I'd strongly recommend your hospital attorney talks to my hospital attorney. And tell your attorney to keep Ferguson away from your oncology department."

"Ah-huh." House appreciated the doctor's veiled warning. "Although, it's probably too late given he's about to settle a multi-million-dollar claim with our head of oncology."

Auburn made what House could only describe as an angry, strangled noise down the phone. "Bastard," he said under his breath.

"Right," House said. He had enough info to go on with. "Give me your attorney's details."

Auburn gave House a name and phone number and then said goodbye, wishing House luck.

House sat back again, pulling the pieces together in his mind. This was more than enough information for Wilson's lawyers to rescind the settlement and work on a new agreement with Ferguson. Perhaps one that forced him to go to court and prove his claims, in which case his previous claim in Florida would enter the records. House had a feeling that once that happened, Ferguson's case would collapse.

But was it enough information for Alice to write her story? It still needed to be proven in court. And did House care anyway? As he'd said to her, getting Wilson off the hook was his motivation, he couldn't care less if she wrote her stupid story.

_Could he?_

House's phone rang while he was sitting there thinking.

"House?" Cuddy's voice was clipped and there was no mistaking her irritation. "It seems I'm having a party in my office. I have Wilson, Thirteen, Kutner, Evelyn the hospital's attorney and a journalist called Alice McKenzie from the _Princeton Observer_ all here. Looks you're the only one missing."

Her voice was dangerously and sarcastically calm.

House couldn't resist a quip. "Be there in five. I'll bring the cupcakes and sody pop!"

* * *

--

The clamour of conversation coming from Cuddy's office was loud enough to hear out in the clinic waiting area. House walked in, but it wasn't until Cuddy's shrill voice called out a question to him that everyone quieted down.

"House, you had your fellows admit a patient who is about to make a multi-million-dollar settlement with this hospital!" Her fury was barely contained.

"Yes Cuddy, but you see, he's _really_ sick this time. And we're a hospital. I thought hospitals _liked_ sick people." House struck a mock thoughtful pose as he glanced around the room. Wilson was sitting opposite Cuddy's desk looking stunned and slightly nauseous. The hospital's lawyer – an attractive blonde that House had gone out of his way to avoid – had been arguing with Thirteen and both of them were breathing heavily. In another place, in another time, House would have brought popcorn and sat down to watch that. Kutner was standing off to one side, looking both slightly amused and vaguely upset by the commotion.

Alice was standing opposite Cuddy's desk, in the power position in the room. It was obvious that, until House had walked in, Alice had been holding court. She was in a black suit again – House realised he had never asked her why it was she always wore black – and she looked, well, _hot_. House had a thing for powerful, in control women, and Alice had it in spades. He was annoyed with himself for thinking that, because he wanted to be angry with her, not daydreaming about how fantastic it would be if he could take her off to a conveniently located supply closet and have his way with her.

"He's really sick this time Cuddy," House continued. "And he actually was really sick last time. Only not as bad. And not with cancer."

"Exactly what I was trying to explain," Alice interrupted. She turned to the lawyer who was still glaring at Thirteen with what House was desperate to call sexual tension. "Evelyn, we have enough for you to force Ferguson to go to court," Alice explained.

Wilson finally perked up from his seat, starting to look a little more relieved and a little less dumb-struck.

"So let me get this straight." Wilson took a deep breath. "Ferguson has TB. He had TB in Florida, but he was wrongly diagnosed with cancer and then sued the doctor. He won the settlement there and decided to have another go at winning another settlement against another doctor. So he came to me and I did exactly the same thing, diagnosed his TB as cancer. And he sued us."

"Exactly," Alice said, giving him a warm smile. "What did the Florida doctor say, Greg?"

House handed Evelyn – he hadn't known that was the blonde lawyer's name until Alice said it earlier – the scrap of paper with the details Auburn had given him. "This is Orlando General Hospital's attorney. Ferguson's doctor there has obviously been gagged by a court order, but he strongly recommends that you guys talk."

Cuddy's whole posture of hostility began to settle down now that it appeared that her precious hospital might be safe again. But House knew there was still one last thing Cuddy would have to sort out. And sure enough, she turned to Alice with a piercing look.

"Ms McKenzie, what will the _Observer_ have to say about all this? I don't want any nasty surprises over my breakfast cereal tomorrow."

Alice smiled and House realised he was probably the only one in the room that could read the dejectedness in her face.

"Nothing, Doctor Cuddy. You don't have to worry. I don't have anything that I could legally publish. It's all hearsay and conjecture until you guys get to court."

"Unless . . . " House said, thinking aloud. "Unless we move this tea party to another table."

"What?" Cuddy and Wilson exclaimed in unison.

"Which room is our friend Mr Ferguson staying in?" House asked Thirteen.

"Four-twenty-five."

"Last one there's a rotten egg!" House grinned and then sped out of the room.

* * *

--

Alice took her place in the procession through the hospital heading towards Simon Ferguson's room. House led the parade, as mad as the March Hare and Hatter combined. Alice was too far back to know for sure, but she could have sworn he was singing something.

Evelyn, the hospital's lawyer, and Dr Cuddy, the dean – House's boss, who didn't know that Alice knew quite as much about her as she did – flanked Alice as if she was a dangerous terrorist who couldn't be trusted to walk the hospital corridors on her own. Still, she understood their concern, and in their position, she'd be just as protective. Even though they had nothing to worry about. Alice's career as a journalist with the _Observer _was over, she realised with a sick sense of dread. Mad-Eye had said if she didn't have the story she wasn't even to come and clean out her desk. She hoped that was an exaggeration and began imagining her farewell party, estimating just how many drinks she could make her colleagues buy her before she passed out. Because losing her job and losing her lover all in one day called for nothing if not seriously excessive alcohol consumption.

Alice couldn't help but gasp as they entered Simon Ferguson's room and she saw him lying in bed. In a hospital gown, against the white hospital bed linen, it was even more evident that the guy was very, very sick. His eyes were closed, but they flew open and he appeared at first startled and then extremely wary as people flooded into his room.

"Ah, Mr Ferguson, welcome back to our humble establishment," House said with sarcastic graciousness. "I trust the service meets your requirements?"

"I never wanted to come back here," Ferguson whispered through the oxygen mask that covered his mouth and nose.

"No, I guess you didn't." House lifted the oxygen mask away and stared threateningly down at him. Alice was glad she'd never seen that particular look on House's face before, it was terrifying. And it was obviously having the desired effect on Ferguson, because he began to squirm nervously.

"Oxygen, I need the oxygen," he said pathetically.

"House, give him back the mask," Cuddy warned.

"It's okay, I'm watching his sats," House said blithely. "I spoke to a Doctor Auburn in Orlando today and guess what? He told me that you had TB."

"So?"

"You remember Doctor Wilson here?" House gestured over to where Wilson was standing. "Nice oncologist who diagnosed you with cancer? Well, he was wrong. He screwed up. Shame. But it happens. And you knew. You knew it could happen."

"I don't know what . . . you can't come in here and say . . . " Ferguson tried to sit up and one of the machines monitoring the patient began to beep a warning. Alice, already sick with nerves, felt the tension ratchet up a notch in the room.

"House," Wilson said in that warning way that he had. The first time Alice had heard him say that, she'd thought that it would be immensely annoying for House to have to put up with his own, walking, talking conscience. But now, watching this, Alice thought that perhaps it was extremely important there was someone around like Wilson to keep an eye on him.

House made no move to replace the oxygen mask. His eyes flickered over the monitors, but whatever he saw wasn't enough to convince him to change his approach.

"Oh, but I can," House said, still threatening. "You knew you had a little gold mine in those scarred lungs of yours. If you could just find a doctor who'd pay out, who'd be a soft touch. And Wilson is the softest touch. God, you have no idea how much money I've borrowed from the man over the years."

"Hey," Wilson protested weakly.

"What are you going to do with the money?" House asked. "I mean, after the settlement in Florida you must have more than enough now. Leave the country? Buy an island? How much _did_ you win in Florida by the way?"

Ferguson was seriously panting for breath. "Stupid bitch," he managed to gasp.

"Who?" House looked around, but Alice knew who he was talking about. And it wasn't anyone in the room.

"Mr Ferguson, you did this yourself." Alice stepped forward and spoke to him. "Your ex-wife just took what she was owed."

"More than half!" he protested. "She took practically all of it! To support the kid. Bet it's not even mine," he wheezed.

"Well, actually—" House began.

"Once you got the money, your wife divorced you and took most of your settlement," Alice interrupted. So you decided to find a new doctor, get the money you felt _you_ were owed, and then perhaps disappear. Or who knows, try again in another state. Only you didn't know that TB was reportable. Or that it was probably going to kill you before you could go try this on another doctor."

Ferguson's face was red and Alice wasn't sure if it was anger, fever, or the effort of breathing. She figured it was all three.

"So what? Doctors are rich! They can afford it. Yeah, so I knew I didn't have cancer. Took me four different doctors till this one called it." He gestured to Wilson. "He was too nice. I knew he was the one from the minute I coughed on him."

"Lucky for you, idiot, this time you might just get out of things with your life. And probably a hefty attorney's bill." House turned to Wilson with a cheerful and curious look. "What do they charge an hour again Wilson? Is it more or less than an oncologist?"

Wilson let out a little laugh in response.

"House, for God's sake put the O2 mask back on the guy," Cuddy ordered.

House did what he was told. He turned to Alice. "Did you get what you needed?"

Alice held up the little hand-held digital recorder she always had in her purse. "Perfect," she said with a sad smile, knowing how much it had cost her. She turned to Cuddy and the hospital lawyer. "Dr Cuddy, now that we have Mr Ferguson's confession, do you think the hospital would go on the record? Can I have a few comments from you?"

Cuddy turned to Evelyn and Evelyn pursed her lips. Then nodded. "As long as I can be there."

"Sure," Alice agreed, relieved. "Shall we go back down to your office?"

Everyone slowly filed out of the room. Alice was just heading down the corridor, following Cuddy and Evelyn when House called out.

"Alice, can I talk to you?" It wasn't a question.

Alice smiled at Cuddy. "I'll be down in your office in a moment." Cuddy nodded.

Eventually everyone had disappeared and Alice was left standing, staring at House.

"Come with me," he said. He turned on his heel and headed down a corridor, past the elevators and into an office and storage area. He tried a few doors, letting out an annoyed hiss as each one proved to be locked. Finally a door opened and he grabbed Alice's hand, pulling her inside and slamming the door behind them.

Alice barely had time to absorb the fact that she was in a dimly lit janitor's closet before House's lips crashed onto hers. It was the last thing she expected, but her well-trained body responded instantly, curving into his, wrapping her arms around his waist, her lips parting under his insistent kiss. Their tongues slid against each other, and Alice was torn between the need to breathe and her need for the kiss to never end.

Finally, both breathing almost as raggedly as Simon Ferguson had been, they split apart. Alice put a hand against the wall to support herself, confused, uncertain and desperately aroused. She had figured things were over between them. But then, _what was this about?_

They stared at each other, naked desire burning on his face that Alice knew was reflected in her own. But then she watched in anguished grief as House's expression slowly closed over, his eyes shutting down, shutting off that special part of him that only she'd been allowed to see – the sensitive, vulnerable, sweet and caring man that was carefully concealed under a thick, protective layer of sarcasm and indifference.

"I just wanted you to know what you'll be missing," House said, his tone cold and cruel. "I'll have my stuff out of your place before you're home tonight."

With that, he opened the door and walked out, leaving Alice standing there, mouth swollen, knees weak, heart shattered.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **Thanks to all the lovely people who leave reviews! This is the second last chapter, so it's time for all you lurker to come out of the shadows!

* * *

--

The rest of the day passed in a blur for Alice. She somehow pulled herself together enough to interview Dr Cuddy. Then she returned to her desk, hung a "do not disturb" sign on her back, and typed frantically for a couple of hours. The words flowed from her, the passion she felt for House morphing into passion for her story, and when she'd finished, Alice knew it was one of the best she'd ever written.

She presented it to Mad-Eye, sitting his office while he read it. She watched as he nodded, frowned and then, finally, smiled.

"_This_ is why I pay you." It was the highest praise she'd ever received from him.

She ran the story past Max, and he changed just a few minor things.

"Alice, this is a great story. You really slayed a bad guy this time."

"Thanks Max." Alice had hurried out of Max's office before she gave in to the overwhelming urge to cry.

She made it home, sinking into a sofa, her mind a blank. She didn't want to walk into the bedroom and see the empty drawers where House's clothes had been, or go into the kitchen, where she'd see the gaps on the wall in the adjoining studio where his guitars had hung.

So Alice did the only thing she could think to do.

She cried.

She cried until her face was shiny with tears and snot. She cried until her eyes were almost swollen shut. Eventually she staggered into the kitchen, deliberately avoiding looking in the studio, grabbed a glass of water and went straight back to the sofa. Although she hadn't thought it possible, she cried some more, then pulled a blanket over herself and fell into an exhausted sleep.

In the morning when Alice woke, her previously happy home felt unbearably empty and vacant. She went into the bathroom and washed her face, not wanting to shower because it would mean finding clean clothes and seeing the gaps in her closet where his clothes used to be.

She looked at her red, puffy and blotchy face and frowned at herself. She remembered what Alice in Wonderland had said when she'd cried endlessly.

"_You ought to be ashamed of yourself_," she said, hands on hips, staring at herself in the mirror sternly. "_A great girl like you, to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!_"

Reciting Lewis Carroll's reprimand did nothing to help. Perhaps it was because when storybook Alice said those lines, she had grown so large she had a house wrapped around her. And real-world Alice was crying because she _didn't_ have a House wrapped around her.

It was still early and she decided to go into work. There would be things to do to follow up the story and besides, it probably wouldn't be all that healthy to spend _another_ twelve hours sitting on her sofa crying. Perhaps the office would be enough of a distraction.

The morning passed in a blur. Alice forced herself to read the paper, knowing that under any other circumstances she would be bursting with pride over the front-page banner headline: _This man is why your healthcare costs more – an investigative report by Alice McKenzie._

Underneath the headline they had published a creepy photo of Simon Ferguson. Alice guessed Mad-Eye had sent the photographer out to take it after Alice had interviewed him. Of course, at the time, he hadn't realised what the tone of the story would be, so he was caught halfway between smiling and looking sick. He gave every indication of being a complete slime ball. Alice folded the paper with disgust, not wanting to see his face staring up at her and spent the rest of the morning staring out the window, playing with her Rubik's Cube, and deflecting the stream of people coming to her desk to praise her on the story.

Patricia came up to her desk around midday.

"Is your ego in any danger of exploding, or can I safely say congratulations?" she asked.

"I'm fine, and thanks," Alice replied flatly.

"Alice, darling, you look _awful_."

Alice gave Patricia the kind of stare that would have sent lesser beings scurrying away.

"You must come to lunch with me."

"No thanks, Patricia I—"

"I'm not taking _no_ for an answer today, Alice. Come on, grab your purse."

Alice sighed. She supposed that listening to an hour of Patricia's whining about not being pregnant might at least take her mind off things. And although she felt as if she should be receiving sympathy instead of having to give it, she did like the idea of getting out of the office. If one more person came up to say congratulations – telling her "well done" about the story that she considered had destroyed the only good thing to have happened in her life for the last two years – she thought she might scream.

Seated in yet another of Patricia's favourite pretentious restaurants, Alice tried hard to pay attention to her lunch companion's cheerful gabbing about the latest fashion show she'd been to where a celebrity had been seen mauling a model within sight of his extremely pissed-off wife.

"So, as you can imagine it caused quite a storm, and I was the only columnist to cover it today," she said with glee.

"That's great Patricia, good for you." Alice tried hard to feign enthusiasm but she could hear the pretence in her own voice.

Patricia frowned at her and folded her arms. "Well, seeing as it doesn't seem like you're even going to ask how I am, I guess I'm just going to have to tell you. I'm pregnant."

Alice belatedly realised she should have noticed that Patricia had ordered mineral water instead of her usual chardonnay. _Crap_. Just what she didn't need. She wanted non-pregnant Patricia as a lunch date: someone else complaining that they weren't getting what they wanted from life was just the right sort of company for her in her current mood. Despite the fact that she was sincerely happy for Patricia, she knew it was going to take a huge amount of energy to fake the unbridled excitement that Patricia's announcement deserved.

"Patricia, I'm really, really happy for you."

"I know! Isn't it amazing. Finally. You can't tell anyone yet though – it's still early, but I know everything's going to be fine. Rowan would kill me if he knew I'd told you, but I knew you'd want to know." She leant in confidentially. "I think we conceived on the night of the dinner party. Perhaps the stars were in alignment that night?" She gave Alice a _nudge, nudge, wink, wink_ kind of look.

Thinking about that night, about how House had cheekily barged in on her in the bathroom and then what had taken place next, simply made Alice have to swallow hard. Then blink. Then stare up at the ceiling. And then give in to the painful lump in her throat and yet another bucket of tears that her body had called up from somewhere.

"Oh, Alice," Patricia said sympathetically, patting her on the arm at the same time as looking around to make sure they weren't making too much of a scene in the cooler-than-cool eatery. "I know you want to have a baby too, but it will be your turn soon. You just have to keep trying, I know when Rowan and I first—"

"That's not it," Alice managed to say as she tried to reign in her tears. _Trust Patricia to think that – after all it _is_ all about her._

"Then what?"

Sniffing and trying to regain her composure, Alice slowly told Patricia the story, how she told House she wouldn't do the malpractice investigation, what had happened when she'd continued with it, how House had helped and then pulled the rug from under her – as he'd had every right to do.

Patricia listened quietly, nodding, as Alice told her lengthy tale.

"So that's it. I'm alone again. And I don't even want to go home anymore." Alice drained the glass of wine she'd ordered and waited for some brief, gushing, superficial sympathy quickly followed by a change of subject back to Patricia and her pregnancy.

"Alice McKenzie! I've never heard anything more fucking pathetic in my life!" Patricia's tone could not be called gushing. In fact, the severe, scolding tone actually made Alice sit up straight and stop sniffing. And despite the fact that any conversation in the newsroom was punctuated by swearing, Alice thought it was the first time she'd ever heard Patricia use the f-word.

"But—" Alice's first instinct was to go on the defensive.

"But nothing. You were in love with this man. He was in love with you. You have to do something to save this. Sitting here crying is not going to achieve anything."

Patricia's rebuke made Alice's bottom lip tremble. "He didn't _really_ love me," she said, knowing that at another time and place she would have been appalled by the whiny, self-pitying person she seemed to have become.

"Of course he loves you. He barely stopped talking about you at that dinner party. And I should know. I was doing everything I could to get him to think about my fertility. But he kept going on, 'Alice'-this and 'Alice'-that. It was actually kind of annoying."

"Well, he said it, but he didn't mean it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you know, he said those three words in a row, but the situation wasn't . . . he didn't really mean . . . "

"Oh, you mean he was coming?"

Alice cringed. "Not exactly."

"Alice, take my word for it, he loves you. And even if he's not sure yet, you love him, don't you?"

Alice took in a breath. There she was, blaming him for not saying the words in a meaningful way, and she realised that she hadn't even said them at all. _But did she love him? _

"Yeah. Yes, I love him. In a way I never thought I would ever again."

"Right. So if something wasn't right in the world, the Alice I know would not be just sitting around crying about it. She'd be working hard to make it right. In this case: getting him back. She'd at least try, knowing that even if it doesn't work, she'd done her best, let him know how she felt, and given herself every chance to be loved in the way she deserves to be loved." Patricia looked at her sternly. "Tell him you're sorry."

Alice sighed. "You're right, but I don't know . . . Greg doesn't really go for 'sorry'. And I don't think I could even find a way to get him to listen to me in the first place."

"So find a way."

"Hmm." Alice sat back. She knew that trying to talk to him would fail. He would just refuse to listen to her, or find a way to ignore her. She had to get through to him indirectly. Suddenly, a glimmer of an idea started forming in her head.

_Maybe. Maybe it would work. _

Then she asked herself a scary question: _What have you got to lose? _

"Patricia, did the photographer take any shots of me and Greg at your dinner party?"

"Yes, I think he did. I'd still have them on file. Why?"

"I think I have an idea. Will you help me?"

* * *

--

"Danny, please, can you help me?" Alice begged. She'd spent ten minutes describing what she needed the Observer's in-house graphic designer to do.

He listened, his eyes growing wider as the implications of what Alice was suggesting became clear.

"With a masthead? And advertising?" He sounded exceptionally doubtful. "Alice, do you have any idea what Mad-Eye would do to me if he found out?"

"Danny, you can blame me. Tell him it was all my idea and, if you have to, that I forced you to do it at gunpoint, I don't care. I'm leaving anyway so it doesn't matter if he fires me." The words were out of Alice's mouth before she was aware of what she was saying. But like she'd often discovered, she found that although she hadn't really thought about it, what she was saying was true.

"You're leaving?"

"Yes. But that doesn't matter. Will you do it?"

"Yeah, but you owe me a dozen Krispy Kremes."

Alice impulsively reached over and kissed his cheek. "Thanks Danny."

She knew there was one more person whose help she needed. She picked up her phone and dialled the number he'd given her during their interview yesterday.

"James? It's Alice. Would you do me a favour?"


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **Thanks so much everyone for your warm response to House and Alice. This is the last chapter of the story, although I have a short epilogue that I'll post in the next day or two. Hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have!

* * *

--

_The next morning_

House was sitting in his office, facing away from the door, staring out the window. He was wondering if he was coming down with a virus: he was lethargic, achy, tired and finding it hard to concentrate. Right in the middle of working out what medication he might take, his office door was opened noisily.

House didn't turn around. He wasn't interested in visitors.

"House?"

_Damn_. Wilson wouldn't be easy to get rid of, House knew. If only it could have been one of his team then he could have yelled at them. Or Cuddy – then he could have started a fight.

"House." Wilson's voice was getting more impatient, but House still couldn't be bothered to turn around to face him.

"Wilson? I'm getting the flu. Could you get me—"

"House, you're not getting the flu. Have you read today's paper?"

"No. Yesterday's news somehow took away my enthusiasm for current affairs."

"Well, I think you'll want to see this."

House knew Wilson was baiting him, and sure enough, he _was_ curious. But the effort of putting his feet on the floor and spinning around in his chair felt like more energy than he had to spare.

When House didn't move, he heard Wilson sigh.

"I'm going to leave the paper on your desk. You need to read it."

Now House was _really_ curious. If it was more Simon Ferguson news, Wilson would still be talking, gabbing on and on – not placing a newspaper on his desk and walking out.

He waited long enough for Wilson to get back to his office and then, to be doubly sure he wasn't lurking around trying to see what House would do, he rolled his chair across to a vantage point where the reflection in the window would tell him if anyone was hanging around in the corridor. Once he was satisfied that the whole area outside his office was empty, he turned around and pulled his chair into the desk.

The first thing that struck him was the photo staring up at him. The blandly familiar masthead of the _Princeton Observer_ had become suddenly sinister.

_Shit! Why was _he_ on the front page? _

The initial shock was not diminished when he realised he recognised the photo's setting. It must have been taken at the dinner party he'd attended with Alice. He was standing, looking at the camera while Alice was side-on, facing him, laughing. His left arm was wrapped loosely around her, his hand visibly resting on her waist. House always hated photographs of himself, but this one? Even given his dread about what it meant, he couldn't help noticing that it was good – he looked relaxed, happy, almost . . . handsome. Perhaps he could even see a little of what Alice might have seen in him at one time.

The next thing his eyes settled on was the bold, black headline above the photo.

_More malpractice uncovered: Doctor misses serious heart condition _

House couldn't help but suck in a breath as a sharp, cold fear clenched in his gut. His first reaction was to take the headline literally. _Was Alice sick? Or worse? Had she been ill and he'd missed it? _

His eyes began frantically scanning the article and he quickly realised he'd been sucked in by a clever fake. He flicked the page over, sure enough, it was blank on the reverse. A fake front and back page had been wrapped around the inside pages of the _real_ version of the day's newspaper. Someone who had the resources to do so had mocked up a very convincing forgery. The sheer cleverness of it immediately ruled out Wilson. Which left . . .

He made a disgusted noise and began to crumple up the newspaper, intending to throw it in the trash.

But he paused, hand over the metal bin. Curiosity got the better of him, and he spread the paper out again, reading through the article under the headline properly.

_Princeton Plainsboro diagnostician Dr Gregory House is the latest New Jersey doctor to be accused of malpractice. Investigations by this newspaper have uncovered a serious incident which places Dr House at the centre of causing a critical disorder known as "_cardiac fracture"_._

_Alice McKenzie, an _Observer_ feature reporter, has been seeing the world-renowned doctor for several weeks, undergoing a radical form of treatment for a serious heart condition believed to be caused by neglect and abuse. _

_Ms McKenzie reported that her wellbeing had been steadily improving following a regime of kindness, affection and regular, vigorous protein injections. _

House had to smirk at that, despite his intention to remain unaffected.

_In the past, Dr House was himself a victim of cardiac fracture, and Ms McKenzie had hoped that working through her illness may have assisted Dr House in his own recovery. _

_Just this week, Dr House and Ms McKenzie were involved in revealing conman Simon Ferguson's attempt to discredit Dr James Wilson. Ms McKenzie says the fall-out from the case has had a serious impact on her treatment. _

"_I have been told Dr House never misses a diagnosis," Ms McKenzie says. "However in my case he did not predict that his treatment would become dangerously addictive. Once treatment was withdrawn, he failed to see exactly how serious my heart condition had become."_

_Despite his failure to identify her issues, Ms McKenzie says she believes continuing Dr House's treatment is her only option. _

"_Dr House and myself have an intense need to solve problems and understand people," Ms McKenzie explains. "Unfortunately in this instance, I believe my desire to investigate a situation and to prove my journalistic abilities may have seriously affected Greg House's trust in me. I am sincerely sorry about that. _

"_He has every right to be cautious, but I believe in the interests of both our hearts' continuing recovery, our joint treatment should be recommenced." _

_The paper was unable to gain a statement from the hospital._

_Ms McKenzie has decided to take a break from journalism to work on her novel. She is still hoping that her cardiac fracture is repairable. For more information on Ms McKenzie's next public appearance, please turn to the back page. _

House wasn't quite sure how to feel. It was kind of pathetic, something a teenager might attempt. _Cardiac fracture? Puh-lease._ But he turned to the back page anyway. It took a while before he noticed anything out of place, but then he found it: a small display ad on the back page, wedged between the sports stories.

"_Alice McKenzie will be signing copies of Lewis Carroll's book, _Alice in Wonderland_, in the foyer of Princeton Plainsboro Hospital from 9am-5pm every day this week. She will continue to sign other authors' books until her own is finished. Grab your autographed copy and go into the running to win a trip for two to Egypt." _

House looked at his watch. It was just after ten am.

_Alice was seriously going to sit in the hospital's foyer for eight hours every day this week until he decided to speak to her?_ He begrudgingly admired her persistence, but made no move to leave his office. He folded the paper and put it away in a drawer.

Through a combination of surfing the internet, assigning pointless busywork to his team, and forcing himself to read the entire way through the latest nephrology journal, House managed to make the next few hours disappear.

Cuddy interrupted his time-wasting mid-afternoon.

"House, did you know that journalist from the _Observer_ has been sitting in my foyer since nine this morning?"

"Really?" House asked innocently.

"She said she's waiting to see you."

"She didn't make an appointment."

He didn't miss the frustration in Cuddy's sigh. "House, just take care of this. I don't want to have to call security to have her moved."

She hung up.

House sat back in his chair and spun around in slow circles for while. He had been tempted to find out if Alice would come back again tomorrow if he ignored her all day, but he knew now that Cuddy was involved it would just get messier if he let it go on that long. And while House had no objections to causing Cuddy, or the hospital, some inconvenience, he didn't particularly want to do it at the cost of his private life becoming public entertainment.

He took a deep breath and then slowly made his way out of his office. Striding down the corridor, he hit the call button for the elevator and was surprised by the feeling that suddenly hit him.

_He was nervous. _

He hadn't managed to get to Alice's the day before to move his things. And last night, sitting in his apartment, he'd felt strangely uncomfortable, as if he didn't _fit_ properly there anymore. He was still angry with her, he told himself. _It was a matter of principle._

But he guessed it wouldn't hurt to see what she had to say for herself.

When the elevator doors opened on the foyer, it took him only a moment to find her, sitting off to the right on those God-awful plastic chairs, looking sad and forlorn. He was glad she was upset, because she deserved it. Completely betraying his trust was not a small thing. Why then did he have to fight an almost overwhelming urge to gather her into a hug and tell her everything would be okay?

Not that he was going to do that.

He assembled what he knew was his perfectly dispassionate face, and walked right up to her and tapped her foot with his cane. She jumped up instantly, looking nervous, avoiding his eyes. He could tell she'd been crying. A lot, if the bags under her eyes were anything to go by.

"I read the paper," he said.

"Did you like it?" She looked down, her toe rubbing at the floor.

"Hmph."

"I had to reach back into my teenage-writer's soul to come up with that."

"That's what it read like. I hope your novel's going to be better."

"So do I." She stood straighter, still not quite meeting his eyes.

They were both silent for a while and House was reminded of when he'd brought her the un-birthday cake. He'd made a move and she'd checked him, both of them too stubborn to admit the desire that was inflaming them both. Back then, he'd had to swallow an entire meal and make stupid small talk when all he wanted was to bury himself deep and hard inside her – pretty much as soon as she'd opened the door.

This time, the price of stubbornness was much higher. It was more than just extending the time before they'd be wrapped up in each other. It was gambling whether it would ever happen again.

She'd apologised. Admitted fault. Come to some realisation that had even caused her to quit her job. For someone who was just as stubborn as he was, it was a big step. Could he take the final step to meet her? Swallow his pride this time, and accept her apology?

"You'd better take your book," she said, breaking the silence. She handed him a beautifully illustrated, hard-cover version of _Alice in Wonderland_.

House didn't take it. "I already have a copy."

"It doesn't matter." She gave him a lopsided smile. "You won the daily prize." She held it out further, encouraging him to take it. "Go on. Read the inscription."

She looked so nervous and vulnerable, House could practically feel the cracks forming in his carefully assembled facade as he fought the urge to comfort her. Frowning, he leant his cane against the nearby chairs and took the book. He opened it to the inside cover.

_Greg – hoping you might join me in exploring Wonderland. Let's start with Cairo and go from there? A x _

House took a deep breath, knowing, in that instant what he was going to do. He flicked to the final pages of the book, a half-smile crossing his face as he saw a picture of Alice opening her eyes and finding her sister still sitting under the tree. He tilted the book so she could see the illustration he was looking at. "I don't suppose I'm going to wake up and find out this was all a dream?" he asked.

"Is that what you want?"

House stifled a yawn as a way to look away from her when he spoke. "I could really use a nap. I can't sleep properly in my bed anymore."

"Right." Alice took in a deep breath. "Well, we could go take a nap at my place and see what happens when you wake up," she said, deliberately nonchalant.

Finally, he met her eyes and saw the hope there. Knew he had the power to crush her. How easy and immediately satisfying it would be to see her hurt the way she'd hurt him.

It was a momentary thought.

He smiled and she smiled back, tears welling in her eyes. _God, the woman could cry._ He didn't want that, not in the foyer. He could feel at least two pairs of familiar eyes drilling into his back, waiting to see what would happen.

"I'd rather see what kind of dream I can have _before_ we go to sleep," he said, leering.

Alice rolled her eyes, shaking her head, covering her emotion in fake disapproval. "Okay. Do you want to go pack up? I can wait here."

"No, let's just go now. I can get my stuff tomorrow."

* * *

--

Alice woke up a couple of hours later, just as the sun was beginning to set.

She looked over at the man dozing next to her and was suddenly possessed with the need to say the words that still hadn't been said. She shook him gently, trying to wake him.

"Greg?"

"What?" he answered sleepily.

"I love you."

"You woke me up to tell me that?"

"Yes."

"Good. I love you too. Now can we go back to sleep for a while? I was having a really good dream."

"Sure." Alice snuggled into his warm body.

They lay silent for a while, before House made a grumbling noise and stretched.

"I can't go back to sleep," he complained.

"Neither can I," Alice admitted. "I was lying here thinking about what I'm going to do with my life now that I don't have to put up with Mad-Eye's bullshit."

"What are you going to write?"

"I'm not sure. I was doing some work a few weeks ago looking into farmers. I think there's a good story to tell somewhere there."

"Or maybe you could write a children's book like _Alice_."

"You think?"

"You've certainly had enough adventures to pull one together."

"Maybe," Alice mused. "_Alice's Adventures in_ . . . Hmm. Maybe just _Alice's Adventures_."

"A daring tale of a superhero-girl-journalist and her sidekick dog, Buster," he suggested.

"Buster?"

"Just thinking creatively." He shrugged.

"This story. Does it have a happy ending, do you think?"

He squeezed his arms around her. "Yeah, I think it just might."

The End


	20. Epilogue

**Epilogue **

Wilson knocked on the door of Alice's house, thinking to himself that he perfectly understood why House had chosen to move out of his dingy little apartment and take up residence in this beautiful home.

"Wilson, you found the place, eventually," House said sarcastically, opening the door.

"Nice to see you too, House." Wilson held out a hand and House shook it, then the two men each wrapped an arm around the other for a brief – but very manly – hug. Wilson was a little surprised, but then he guessed it had been a long time since they'd seen each other socially.

He handed over a bottle of red wine that House took greedily before showing Wilson into the house.

"So, gonna give me the tour?" Wilson asked.

House frowned. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. I liked your old place, but this one is a vast improvement. I'd like to take a look."

"Okay," House said reluctantly.

He begrudgingly showed Wilson the main rooms, giving brief, obvious explanations as they entered each one.

"Kitchen."

"Dining room."

"Living room."

House opened one of the French doors leading off the living room and stepped outside to give Wilson a quick view of the garden.

"Yard," he offered helpfully.

Wilson began to laugh.

"What?" House asked, annoyed.

"There really is a hot tub." Wilson remembered back when House had come into his office with a grazed back, telling Wilson it was the result of a "hot tub misadventure". Wilson hadn't believed him at the time.

"When will you start believing me?" House said, as if he was hurt.

House lead them back into the kitchen and poured them each a glass of wine.

"So, how was Egypt?" Dinner tonight was the first chance Wilson had had to hear all the travel stories. It had been a long time since he and House had been able to sit down and chat socially. Once the story had been published in the _Observer_, Wilson was caught up in a crazy month of legal mop-up. He'd briefly seen House to say goodbye before he and Alice had headed-off on their three-week trip. He'd received one postcard during that time – obviously written by Alice. They'd been back from Egypt for almost two weeks, but House had been in demand, his absence causing an unexpected hole in the smooth running of Princeton Plainsboro. All together it had been well over two months since Wilson had been able to have a proper conversation with his friend.

He'd missed him.

"Egypt was hot. And filthy for the most part. But pretty cool. The pyramids were just as big as I remembered. I'd been thinking that because I saw them as a kid they wouldn't be that impressive – you know, everything looks bigger when you're a kid. But they were still awe-inspiring. We caught a flight down to see Abu Simbel and that was great. Alice took about a billion photographs and she's going to make you sit through everyone of them."

"I don't mind," Wilson said, and he meant it. He still couldn't quite get over the idea that he might be seeing photos of _House_, on vacation with his girlfriend. Just like a _normal_ person. He was looking forward to getting to know the woman who'd made it happen. "Where is Alice?"

"In the bathroom. She'll be out sooner or later."

House led them into the living room and they sat on the sofas.

"So did you end up going to Petra?" Wilson remembered that although House and Alice's trip had been reasonably well planned, they'd left their final week open to see what might appeal to them. Going to Jordan to see Petra had been the latest idea he'd heard before they left.

"Nah, we went to Alexandria instead and then went on to stay at a resort on the Red Sea at Hurgada. Had our own private swimming pool."

"Sounds relaxing."

"Yeah, it was. Oh, and I got you a present." House got up and went over to a bookshelf, pulling out something flat and long. "Here."

Wilson took the gift, pulling off a black plastic bag to find a sheet of papyrus covered in colourful, carefully inked hieroglyphics.

"House, it's beautiful." Wilson was really touched. He couldn't remember the last time House had brought him back a gift from vacation. In fact, he didn't think it had happened, ever.

"It's not exactly original," House said with a sneer at Wilson's reverence.

"No, I get that," Wilson said. "I just . . . I really like it."

"Good," House said gruffly.

"Hi James." Alice walked in and Wilson stood up so they could exchange kisses.

"Alice – it's lovely to see you."

Alice then stood next to House and he reached an arm around her, giving her a quick squeeze. Wilson noted that he dropped a light kiss to the top of her head, then whispered, "You okay?". His voice was quiet enough that Wilson almost didn't hear.

Alice nodded and gave him a grim smile before turning to Wilson with a softer expression. "You set up with a drink?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm fine, thanks Alice." Wilson held up his glass and gave Alice a smile.

"Great. I'm gonna go grab one for myself, get our dinner sorted, and then I'll join you. Oh, and James, has Greg warned you about the photos?"

"Yes, he has, but I actually want to see them."

Alice laughed. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice." She gave him a broad smile and disappeared into the kitchen.

The two men took their seats on opposite sofas and again Wilson was struck by how stylish and yet comfortable the place was. Looking at his friend, Wilson thought that at one time he could never have imagined House anywhere other than completely and miserably alone; sitting on that brown leather couch in his one-bedroom apartment, staring blankly at the TV. And yet here he was, and he looked right at home.

"Alice brought back a parasite from Egypt," House said, settling more comfortably into the sofa.

"Oh no, is that why she looks a little pale?"

"Yeah, she's been throwing up all day."

"House, you should have cancelled dinner if Alice wasn't well. We could have made it another night."

"It's okay."

"So what has she got? Nothing too serious?"

"Well, yeah, it is pretty serious actually. It's the kind of parasite that I'm legally obliged to support for the next twenty-one years."

It took a moment for House's obtuse explanation to sink in.

"A baby?"

"Yeah."

"And you . . . you're . . . A baby?" Wilson said uselessly, feeling a universe beyond surprised.

"Alice keeps going on about _legacy_ and some crap. I figure it could be interesting."

_He figures it could be interesting_, Wilson thought, shaking his head as if the movement would somehow help the realisation sink in. Then he mentally shrugged. _It could be interesting_ was one of only two reasons why House did anything. House had done a lot more stupid things in pursuit of _interesting_ than having a child.

"Happened a bit faster than we thought it would, though," House added as Alice returned to the living room.

"Yeah, maybe there was something to that theory of Patricia's," Alice said with a smile, sipping from a glass of what looked like ginger ale. "Something about soul mates?"

"I think you'll find it was _my_ theory that actually worked. Relaxing and having lots of sex."

"A relationship, a vacation _and_ a baby?" Wilson asked incredulously. "House, I thought you having another girlfriend was impossible. I thought you going away on a romantic vacation was impossible. I thought you _having a family_ was _really _impossible. Wonderful, but impossible. I can hardly believe it. "

"I'd say you need to try harder, Wilson_,_" said House with a sly grin. "_Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast._"

Alice laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

"Come on. Dinner's ready, let's eat."


End file.
